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UK Government Says More Spying Needed
An anonymous reader writes "Our wonderful government here in the UK has decided we're not being surveilled enough, and agreed to spend £12 billion on a programme to monitor every Briton's phone calls, e-mails, and internet usage. According to various sources, upwards of £1 billion has already been spent on the uber-database. Rationale? Terrorism, of course (no prizes for guessing).
Needless to say, not everyone is as happy as Larry over this: Michael Parker pointed out how us Brits are being 'stalked.' I'm just looking forward to when the data gets lost."
""Our wonderful government here in the UK has decided we're not being surveilled enough, and agreed to spend £12 billion on a programme to monitor every Briton's phone calls, e-mails, and internet usage."
With economies going the way they are. job security will be spying on each other.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Damn, spying really is like violence. You know, like XML...
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Soon the l337 h4x0r d00d5 will have access to private details of every citizen of the UK.
The UK had its own domestic terrorists for decades: the IRA. Yet the government did not feel that such pervasive monitoring was necessary. Now, largely because of something that happened 3000 miles away, the UK feels that such pervasive monitoring is necessary.
I say BS: every agency is wetting themselves hoping to get their hands on this data so that they can pursue their own petty agendas in the same way as RIPA powers have been used for trivial reasons.
Everyone has something to hide. Not necessarily illegal, but enough to coerce behavior.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I have thought over it many times and, regarding myself, I have concluded: I would prefer to live freely and unobserved and someday die in a terrorist attack, than live in a "security" hell for all my life with cameras and RFIDs up my ass.
Put aside the fact that surveillance almost never stops a attack - only it helps find the burned-out guys.
And some semantics: How many of you walk in the street and feels ''terrorized''? On the other hand, how many of you feel terrorized by the fact that your every moment is on tape, and your personal data wanders in places you don't know?
I pity the poor saps who have to sit and listen to our phone calls. I come close to running out the room screaming with people I've known for years - whiney, self-indulgent moaning. Bitching about the weather, the government, the television, cars, public transport, the quality of the beer and then of course I've got this terrible pain in the diodes all down my left hand side...
Modern day Britain reminds me of the science fiction dystopia portrayed on the old British TV show The Prisoner.
It's sad and foreboding how social and technological dystopia's emerge from what was once only imaginative musings of science fiction writers.
And you're ALL Number 6.
Do you have the courage that Number 6 had? Will you fight back against Number 2?
Are you just "A number" or are you Free Men & Women?
The choice is yours.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
Now ... not so much. Is it really like this? Cameras and eyes on you at all times?
If you have nothing to hide you can revel in the fact you are safe, or at the very least when you are victimized it will be preserved for posterity!
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
I am sure many reader are probably aware that assets of Iceland's bank were seized using anti-terrorism laws. Out of curiosity for people from the UK, is there even any reaction to this misuse of power ? With the economic going down, and surely crime rate will rise, I wouldn't trust the civil servants with powers like this.
I live in Sweden, and it seems that the law that was supposed to be passed has been changed to be a bit less draconian.
But honestly, I don't think there is almost any point in trying to do anything about the actions, or symptoms, of terrorists and terrorism.
Increased security and surveillance simply doesn't help at all. It is to easy for them to just do something else. The possibilities are virtually endless.
Granted, some of the captured people that they claim was trying to commit these kinds of crimes probably would have carried them through...but if the society they had grown up in had been less insane, they probably would never have considered these actions to begin with.
The ONLY thing that can be done is to do something about the causes of it.
Instead, our governments are busy BEING the causes of it. Utterly cluless.
In the last 5 years, there have been roughly 100 deaths related to Terrorism in the UK. The death rate under the IRA was slightly higher at about 50 per year. Let's take that higher figure and assume some 500 deaths over the next 10 years.
So, to fight this, we have a £1 billion database, a £12 billion surveillance program, and an ID cards scheme costing £18 billion. £31 billion for fighting those 500 deaths, or £62 million per death presumably prevented.
Perhaps if this £31 billion was spent on subsidising healthy food or teaching kids to cook properly and healthily, we could see a drop in the several thousand heart disease related deaths each year. If it was spent on road safety perhaps we could see a drop on the 3000 or so people killed on the roads each year.
Why are we worrying about terrorism?
Just get a back door, or a government job, and stalk victims with more ease and comfort.
As I'm not from the UK, I have to wonder what sort of stalking laws this would break.
The government of course being exempt from them.
This is not the funny you're looking for.
This demonstrates how the laws can and will be used.
It justifies those who believe that when laws are proposed you should think of how it could be abused, not just how it could be used.
"The Treasury released a document to Parliament yesterday showing it used sections of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 to take control of the bank's assets, saying in the statement the bank's collapse may harm the U.K. economy. "
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=aXjIA5NzyM5c
Unfortunately most people fail to see the connection between lists and any danger. The lists are being made to influence people who speaking out against the ones in power. But most people fail to see the danger of giving the power seekers ever more data to mine on everyone. Knowledge is power and the ones in power seek the use that knowledge to prevent people standing against their point of view.
With ever more detailed lists on peoples views, soon we end up with people fearful of what they say on the phone and in emails, for fear of their views could even just risk being taken out of context and seen in any way critical of the people in power. At that point, the ones in power are influencing people directly.
At that point, we live in a police state, where freedom is gone and replaced by fear of the ones in power. Problem is, we are getting there now, and from here on out, its simply a matter of consolidation of ever more detailed data mining.
The central reason why centuries ago votes were made in secret, was to prevent the ones in power, from seeking to influence the voters. Yet the power seekers are forever seeking to game the system to gain ever more information on peoples opinions. Now the ones in power are building automated systems to influence people.
Throughout history its been shown time and time again that the ones in power become ever more corrupt over time without any feedback on how they are behaving. Its been show so many times through history.
Most people don't realise the game people in power are playing. People in power are not so interested in individuals. The ones in power are interested in adding everyone to different lists so they can then control and profiling groups of people, so they can then use divide and conquer tactics, to break groups of people up. The goal is that the fragmented groups cannot then stand and oppose the point of view of the ones in power. That is why they data mine.
The lessons of history have not been learned by enough people. Looks like the world is seeking to repeat the mistakes of the past. Freedom and democracy are constantly undermined by a minority of people in power for their own gain. Its just a matter of time and how far we are going to let them all game the system to push the excesses ever more unfairly in their favour. After all, its not as if they are robbing hundreds of billions of tax payers money to keep their rich lifestyles while millions risk loosing everything.
Anyway, if the millions of people can't buy bread, then let them eat cake. ... My point is, the names in history change and the names of their ideologies change. But what remains is basic human psychology and that doesn't change. The lack of empathy of the ones in power over their powerless minions never changes. For all their words, its only their actions which count and millions now face loosing their jobs and millions are treated unfairly by the ones in power.
In such a world, its no surprise that the ones in power would want to watch their minions very closely. After all, people could start to complain its getting all to unfair. But we cannot have that. We need ever more laws to protect the ones in power and ever more laws to keep the minions down and away from power.
The world will never change until everyone worldwide realises that people who constantly seek power over others have a recognisable cluster B personality disorder. All cluster B personality disorders are ultimately driven by fear. And the ones with the disorder constantly seek to control that fear and control everyone around them based on their fear. (There are multiple fears, two examples are lack of attention and the other is fear of lack of power. The attention seekers want more attention (they were deprived of parental attention as children. The ones who want power seek to prevent anyone ever having power over them again, the way they were treated unfairly as children)... The very nature of seeking power over others, means that person seeks to push other
The authorities (both government and corporate, if there is really a difference) now has such a technological ability to watch us and to manipulate the opinions of at least the weakest 80=90% of us, there could very well be no more mass uprisings, ever.
Too many people are all about themselves, their idiotic quest for acquisition and a pitiful concept of personal identity sold to them and a million other fools by professional marketers.
If you ever suggested the idea of violent revolution to one of the sheeple, and they agreed to it, they would simply say 'ok, you go first'.
Its a fairly hopeless situation right now.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
If you use anti-terror legislation against a bank you implicitly declare it's a terrorist organisation.
Yeah, because being armed to the teeth really stopped the US losing its liberty, didn't it?
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
"The scandal is, there is no scandal"
Do you really think that the American people would be allowed guns, even by the Republicans, if the government had even the slightest doubt in its ability to keep the population ignorant.
Americans are allowed more weapons by their government simply because they are more gullible.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
The problem with all this is that the government uses fairness in order to justify this kind of system and to a large extent it's correct. Rich and poor alike are caught on camera, booked and fined automatically and without bias but with enough cameras no-one escapes the fair hand of robotic justice.
BUT, and this is a but the size of John Prescott's, I suspect that part of what makes the interface between state and citizen tolerable to the masses is the little victories that you score over the Man once in a while. Ask someone whose served a long prison sentence how they coped with losing the ability to do what they damn well liked when they like and they'll tell you that it's the little successes like getting an extra pack of ciggies smuggled in or pinching food from the kitchen or just taking the piss and getting away with it. In the same way as prisoners surrender their freedom, society puts restrictions on those living in it and on the whole, this is accepted as reasonable, e.g. the English agree not to possess firearms and in exchange the state, via the police, provide protection to ensure you don't need to. However, if you are on an empty motorway doing 85mph in a well maintained, modern car does it really matter? A copper who pulls you up could give you a warning based on his judgement that you were in control of your vehicle and weren't behaving like an arsehole. Equally, does it matter if, on a Sunday morning, you stop outside a newsagents and pop in to get a paper without feeding the meter; not really, yet a camera/computer logs the offence and a fixed fine is produced, packed and posted.
All the time this is going on people drive like complete idiots at below the speed limit and get away with it. Burglars go unchased as the police turn out and issue you a piece of paper to give to the insurance company without really investigating and kids can roam the streets at night behaving like little shits because they know the Police are too rushed off their feet to turn up unless there's a risk to life.
So long as this goes on, and drivers only interaction with the Police is via a brown envelope, the public's appreciation of their efforts on the road will be erroded and as camera based surveillance is increasingly applied to petty infractions of badly drafted and over zealously enforced rules, the publics respect for the law will be similarly damaged.
Up until recently, the man had a face and he could make a reasoned judgement as to whether your actions were deserving of a warning, a caution or arrest. In the UK, the man has become a faceless electronic beaurocrat, a fact alluded to in a DVLA advert where the DVLA's computer apparently takes the form of a 2001 style black monolith which stalks drivers who failed to pay their road tax. The gist of the ad is that a) there's no escape and b) your car can be seized and crushed on the spot, no argument, no reasoning and most importantly, no mercy. Where this leaves us humans is unsure but I've got a horrible feeling that Demolition Man is the template being worked to.
Freedom is the opportunity to take the piss or screw up once in a while as long as it doesn't cause hurt or damage to those around you and if your willing to take the consequences if it does. Take that away and you may as may as well be in prison.
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.