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UK Government Wants To Bypass Data Protection Act
rar42 writes "Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill, currently being debated by the UK Parliament, would allow any Minister by order to take from anywhere any information gathered for one purpose, and use it for any other purpose. Personal information arbitrarily used without consent or even knowledge: the very opposite of 'Data Protection.' An 'Information Sharing Order', as defined in Clause 152, would permit personal information to be trafficked and abused, not only all across government and the public sector — it would also reach into the private sector. And it would even allow transfer of information across international borders. NO2ID has launched a Facebook group to challenge this threat to data protection."
because we all know how well respected they are...
This legislation is truly terrifying. It allows the government to aggregate all data that they keep about you. It would mean that the government was exempt of the key points of the Data Protection Act.
We must do better than this.
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
of protesting privacy on a companies site that base their revenue (and databases) on people handing them private data.
facebook isnt worth million$ for their pretty graphics
not to mention that if your level of protest is a few mouse clicks, no one is going to take you seriously.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
...if you didn't see this coming. I don't think anyone believed for a minute that any government worker would idly sit on a data goldmine, and not utilize to its full capability. Which is why the proper response to any request for linking databases or collecting any data outside of that necessary for filing charges is "Are you crazy?"
I'd also like to point out that facebook groups are the new Internet petitions: completely meaningless. Either call or mail your representative, or take it like a good consumer.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Really people, stop bitching, and start encrypting everything, using bank accounts in countries like Switzerland, and doing everything possible to minimize the data collected on you. Of course, you'll be labeled a terrorist for going "off grid", but if you want privacy anymore these days, you need to control your exposure. You. Personally.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
what credible threats to the life and liberty of the UK citizenry could possibly justify this?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Why? Why is the UK so bent on tracking this shit all the time. The purpose of government and legislation is to facilitate interactions between people in some manner. I don't see the social service this provides to the welfare of the people? They are already tracking emails and phone calls unconditionally. All internet traffic is going through proxied servers (as evident during wikipedia incident with "child porn" on an album cover). Cameras all over cities. Seriously has anyone stopped to consider if all this technology is even EFFECTIVE (in use)? Furthermore, the fact that this "bypass" is given exclusive to the Minister is a big warning sign. I bet they're too scared to give people the same rights. The biggest risk of all this; ofcourse, is that augmentation of such data over a long period of time can pretty much be construed to incriminate anyone. What a waste of government resources.
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
Its not about privacy at all.
The government has discovered that by enacting legislation like this, they can generate almost limitless energy by sticking magnets on George Orwell's coffin and wrapping the whole thing in a copper coil. (There may be a requirement to immerse the whole apparatus in mineral oil to dissipate the heat generated by the ridiculously high speeds at which Orwell is expected to rotate).
Genius! Pure genius!
A portal to a slippery slope?
Sounds fun!
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The so called "democratic republics" HATE the freedom they profess to love.
Until the digital age, actual freedom was pretty hard. With the internet, the ability to reach the masses with ideas and data is virtually effortless.
In the U.S.A. at least, "We The People" better get off our asses and do something. In the UK, the BBC says the subjects have been careless with their freedoms.
This stuff is bullshit (sorry), march, protest, resist!!!!
I believe that the slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy in most cases. (To implement laws that you don't want through what? Political momentum?)
The slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy only when it's used as deductive reasoning. But when you apply inductive reasoning, which is arguably much more applicable to politics, the slippery slope holds up nicely.
Every time A has happened, B has resulted.
If we let A happen again, B will probably happen.
Pretty rock-solid, if you ask me. If you replace A with "The government has reduced the people's right to privacy, in order to increase the government's power" and B with "The people have grown to accept their reduced rights, and the government has still wanted more power", you have the current situation.
If we (or rather, "they," as I'm not British) accept this invasion, then the government will likely be left wanting more, and the people will grow ever more complacent. It's happened every time thus far, why think that it'll be different this time?
If half of the "UK is out to get it's citizens" articles here are to be believed - you might as well give up and get out as it appears that the fascists have taken over the UK government and nothing you can do will make it otherwise short of a revolution.
Or just challenge it in the European Court of Human Rights. They're likely to view such a change as a clear violation of the Data Protection Directive unless they think they can seriously walk such broad lifting of protections under the exemptions.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
it is just one step from here to a fascist regime. every kind of laws that violate magna carta has been implemented. british public did nothing. i cant believe my eyes.
Read radical news here
You forget, we never elected the current administration in the first place. Fortunately, we will certainly get a chance to unelect them in the fairly near future.
Perhaps, in the spirit of the "changing the law to get one person is OK because public opinion that we've stirred up is against him" news articles we've seen this week, the next administration could change the law retrospectively so we could try the current lot for crimes against humanity?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The govt. will never stop at the originally intended intent of the law, no matter how much they promise to limit the reach of the law for the intended use that 'everyone can agree with'.
The govt. ALWAYS will later, expand upon said law to use it in new and creative ways never intended, or try to stretch it to be used to prosecute someone that might have done something, but, there currently isn't a direct law that applies (like with that lady who harrased a teen online, and said teen killed herself).
Heck...look at the new and creative ways in the past decade that they have been expanding the RICO act which was put in place only to target the mob.
We should insist that most new laws are not only VERY narrowly defined, but that they also have sunset provisions....to give the public at least a fighting chance to not only keep laws from expanding in scope, but, to also have hope that some that are downright bad...have a chance to go away.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Why exactly did Great Britain fight Hitler?
Churchill said some crap about liberties, freedom & stuff like that.
(of course he was a racist pig and a cancer-inducing chronic smoker who slept when London burned).
Seems Hitler's ideas won after all. Lets step back a moment and analyze him:
1) He kept saying that the Soviets are a menace and communism must be wiped out.
Which became the mantra of UK and USA after WW2.
2) He racially profiled people: USA does the same under Truman, FDR and Bush. UK does it explicitly. Hell churchill was an exponent of freedom for all, but vehemently (and violently) denied the same to British Colonies.
3) He believed in Rule of law (the Reich laws of racism were based on US laws). So does UK and USA.
4) He refused to prosecute the Reich Police and Armed Forces who violated the law. Tasering police and fasle-evidence-planting police and murdering soldiers go scot-free in UK and USA.
5) He always thought that the State was bigger than the Individual. Hell yeah!
6) He was a proponent of tracking the smallest activity of the individual. So does UK.
So, it is proven as a theorem that Hitler's ideals are what UK is following.
Looks like he won after all!
Wow! Our brave Hurriance pilots, the brave lonely men in Bombers who did not return home, the men who braved Omaha and Gallipoli, and the countless WACs who wept when their men died will all be happy to learn this.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
But at least it's a polite police state.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
The most powerful argument I have heard for use of surveillance technology is that people that don't break the law should not fear it. The problem is what if the laws change to suit the people in power. We don't need to give the government power that it does not need, but if we need to give them power to protect us it must come at a great cost to them. Regulate the access of the information. Make the process completely transparent. If abuse occurs make the system stop functioning or let the abused go free. It is safe guards like these that ensure the legal system. Why can't it be applied to all government functions.
Well if they do it like they've been doing here in the USA they'll just say it is to catch those nasty pedos and then nobody will dare speak against it. The pedo has become the 21st century boogie man, like the commie in the 50s. They tried using terrorists but found that it doesn't shut up critics like pedo does. After all surely YOU don't want to let those evil pedos get away now, do you?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Well, remind me not to in the future. This is certainly not rock solid. You assume (like all people who use the slippery slope argument in this context) that people will take any abuse from the government just because they take a little abuse from the government (assuming, of course, that this is abuse, and not people feeling insecure and running to the government for help), that means they'll take any abuse from the government. I might be able to swallow a mouthful of sea water when I'm at the beach, but that doesn't mean I'll be able to finish the rest of the ocean.
It's a fallacy, pure and simple. It's an argument based on very shaky intuition based on small, trivial cases (where relevant variables do not change as a result of A happening), but fails to hold for most situations in life.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
As a concrete exampke, I offer the spectacles of Tony Blair putting down three separate back-bencher revolts against him. Labour traditionally had no business supporting the US, particularly over Iraq. Most of the Labour voters were against Iraq. But for some reason Tony thought differently. And was able to impose his will. How would be interesting to know.
Please note, I am not claiming US-style presidential systems are better. They are certainly less democratic in the sense that the people's will is often thwarted.
On this privacy issue, UK citizens may need to fall back to the EU courts and constitution. Rather ironic, the birthplace of freedom (Magna Carta) have to rely on the continent with fewer and a horrible history of citizens serving the state.
I think what is missing from the current picture, or any picture from around the world was implied by the war in Iraq, or at least by some of those perpetuating it: If you show people some freedom they will naturally grab hold of it and demand democracy and freedom for themselves. What is unknown is what it takes to move a westernized populace to revolt en mass. What amount of salt must a western government grind with it's boots into the wounds of its citizens rights before they revolt with guns, bombs, and beheadings? How far are we from that point? What revealed lie or uncovered atrocity against civil rights will be required to bring armed revolution to the front pages of newspapers around the world. What manner of indignation will it take to push the people into forcibly retaking government and reducing its size one head at a time?
These are the questions that must be pondered mightily in the halls of power. These are the questions that we the people should be looking for the government's preparation against. When the government is shown to be preparing for it, it's already time to be shooting at government loyalists.
Ask yourself, will it take only one head? Three heads? How many will be required to satisfy the people and the world that there has been a change of management? How do we in the US simply get rid of the federal government? Declare it null and void and fight off any who argue? Whose brother do you shoot? Whose father? If not bullets, what?
Now is the time to join politically active groups who want real change, change you can be part of and not just change you can believe in. You can believe all change once it happens; both good and bad. What we want is to be part of the change, change that benefits us all, not just corporations and pseudo fascist bureaucrats.
How much more will you take? How much more can you take?
âoeThere are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order.â
â" Ed Howdershelt
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The UK just wants to cover itself.
The good old days of standing before the "house" and saying 'we' do not spy on UK citizens is over.
Allowing the NSA spy at will from bases within the UK.
Spying on "Ireland"
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/gchq-spies-eavesdropped-on-irish-1106575.html
The problem is not the spying, or allowing US bases to spy.
The problem for your average UK MP critter is getting exposed lying to the house.
A baited question about domestic public/corporate surveillance and this helps with that.
The MP can face questions in the house knowing they will be covered as they spin.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Every time the Sun has set, it has risen.
The Sun set a few hours ago for me, yet I'm confident that it will rise again.
I don't need a deductive proof to know it.
Or another example, if I flip a coin and have it land heads 100 times in a row, I can be pretty confident that if I flip it again, it will land on heads again. "Gamblers' Fallacy!" you might mistakenly claim. But it's not... the odds a of a fair coin landing on heads a hundred times in a row are on the order of 1 in 10^30. More likely, I have found a biased coin.
To consider your "gulp of saltwater at the ocean" example, you are thinking only of an isolated incident. That doesn't make a pattern. Now, if you swallowed a mouthful of saltwater every single time you went to the beach, twenty times in a row, then yes, I'd say it's likely that you will swallow yet another on your 21st visit.
Deductive logic is great for mathematicians. For everything else, inductive logic is our best tool.
Posting as AC gives you an extra hour, we'll be round at 5 instead. Yours, the Plod.
Jonathanjk.com
iPlod - the UK internet police.
They do use that argument, but the favourite phrase by far is "without these tools, the police will be hampered in their efforts to protect us from terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants".
With the implied argument that if you're a 'civil liberties campaigner' who dares argue against the database state, you're in favour of the terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants getting away scot-free.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
Having the DNA records of hundreds of thousands of innocent people - including young children - stored on the police database indefinitely was ruled illegal by the Court recently.
So far, the UK government has done jack all about changing the situation, and is muttering about having a consultation about maybe putting in place a machanism by which innoncent people can have their DNA removed from the database, considering the merits, in exceptional circumstances. But the police of course constantly trump how important the database is to
fighting crime and preventing terrorism, and of course they care about civil liberties, but they have to balance those in a fair manner against the need to fight crime effectively.
There are already such rules in place, but the case has to be pretty damn exceptional indeed to get your details off, even if you've never been convicted of anything.
Any such ruling by the court of human rights regarding other illegal data collection and mining would also likely be ignored, as the council of ministers and even the parliament is leaning towards ever greater data retention laws, such as the one passed in 2005.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
No need wo worry, even if you had one, you surely won't next year. I am expecting bankruptcies to exeed the level they were in the last recession - where, three years in a row, 33% of companies were wiped out. (ie leaving about 15% of the original number of businesses) and there were considerable losses in the years before and after this exciting catastrophy.
I fully expect 50% of businesses to go in this year, and each of the two following years. This will leave less than 10% of the businesses we had a year ago.
Quite possibly most of these will be very antisocial. None will be in manufactur9ing, or anything else with a need for investment over a period exceeding 1 quarter.
Yes, I am making plans for my family to leave. But I wont be going to America.
Gordon Brown has been recieving secret training in Government methods by Robert Mugabe
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
it turns out that none of these laws are actually needed to sucessfully prosecute terrorists.
Yup, who'd have thought that planning to murder people, building bombs, and distributing material suggesting other people should commit murder has been illegal for a long, long time?
In the UK non [sic] of the recent anti-terrorism laws appear to have been used against terrorists who cannot be portrayed as "Islamic".
But they have been used against protesters, random people who look a bit shifty, and my mate who left his bike locked up outside a train station, apparently calling up a terror alert in case he'd filled the frame with nitroglycerine and nails.
All those terror laws actually did was mean the police don't need to remember the names of so many laws and acts, or have reasonable suspicion that you have committed a crime before they search you. Huzzah for democracy! Mob rule dressed up as mob rule, and somehow people seem to think it's a social panacea. I suppose those people are the mob... they're probably so innocent they've got nothing to fear, too...
Be smart, help people!
And New Labour (the UK Government - still...) have the brass balls to tell us that we're not living in a police state.
Jack Straw (senior idiot MP). "Talk of a police state is daft".
Tom Harris (idiot MP). "Our liberties are safe with Labour".
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister considers introducing a special law to deal with one (very unpopular) retired banker with a huge pension that was approved by his Government. How democratic.
As a UK subject I cannot wait to vote these fuckwits out.
The tao of democracy: the government you can vote for is not the real government.
When senior police (aka politicians in uniforms) start claiming that we "need" these things in order to stay safe I have to laugh. Especially when people like Dame Stella Rimington, a lady who knows a darn sight more about any "terrorist threat" (ex-MI5 head), comes out and says what a load of rubbish they're talking. Makes me wonder if there actually *is* hope for us on this little island.
Silly rabbit
Cancelling the latest series of Celebrity I've Got A Bargain Ballroom In My Big Jungle Attic.
Or putting the price of beer & cigs up too far.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
No, we elected the current Parliament. The government is elected by a constituency of one, the Prime Minister, who is also elected by a constituency of one, the Queen, who takes into account the party distribution within Parliament.