Slashdot Mirror
In the UK, Big Brother Recedes and Advances
PeterAitch writes "The UK government's Home Office has put a hold on their surveillance project to track details of everybody's email, mobile phone, text, and Web use after being warned of problems with privacy as well as technical feasibility and high costs." Four hours before the above Guardian story was filed, the BBC reported that the same Home Office insisted that it will push ahead with plans "to compel communication service providers to collect and retain records of communications from a wider range of internet sources, from social networks through to chatrooms and unorthodox methods, such as within online games."
It's not just the Brits, it's the whole EU. It's an EU regulation that pretty much all countries accepted.
And it's for our protection, it's to stop terrorists. Erm... or what is to stop child pornography. Maybe it was to catch copyright infringes. Well, it was to stop something anyway, I think.
Anyway, the people will be more safe.
it is time to abandon these islands ..
you mean eject the prats surely!?
preferably by cannon.
Sadly, some of our compatriots do want it.
Some of them have a mix of just enough racism, just enough respect for authority and just enough credulity to have really, heavily bought into the "terrorists are everywhere" line. They think anyone with dark skin of arab/persian or even indian descent is probably plotting to overthrow the state and/or perpetrate some mass murder like 9/11 or 7/7. The tabloids deliberately confuse them and conflate immigration (legal or otherwise), asylum and terrorism into one big boiling mess of "those dark skinned foreigners are just evil!".
And so when the government tell them they are doing something, anything at all, they jump for joy. Criticism is taken as dangerous, subversive anti-patriotic and prima facie evidence of wrongdoing. They also tend to be the types that will immediately defend any action by the police because beating up defenceless protestors is somehow defending the public.
This is not some sort of "those people" thing either, this cuts across social class and geography. Hell, I'm even related to some people like this.
Now, before americans jump in here please remember that there's a big chunk of your population that think exactly the same way. They are often also the ones quickest to shout about loss of freedom when it comes to social programs.
We already kill ourselves in large numbers each year using cars, tobacco, junk food and alcohol, without any help by religious extremists. They're not even going to make a dent.
This proposed legislation has little to do with protection of the citizenry and more to do with making sure that those in power, remain in power.
The budget for the snooping programme was allocated years ago, about £1bn ($1.6bn US) was made public - it was a nice small sounding figure, nothing heard of the scheme again for years. NOW there is an election looming where everything from lying about immigration to the politicians expenses claims have been leaked, they are claiming that the scheme is dead in the water, when the truth is anything but.
If the spies deny it, it is safe to assume they are lying to placate people
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8032367.stm
The UK's electronic intelligence agency has taken the unusual step of issuing a statement to deny it will track all UK internet and online phone use.
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) said it was developing tracking technology but "only acts when it is necessary" and "does not spy at will".
Known as Deep Packet Inspection equipment, these probes will "steal" the data, analyse and decode the information and then route it direct to a government-run database.
Or http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4882622.ece
Every call you make, every e-mail you send, every website you visit - I'll be watching you. That is the hope of Sir David Pepper who, as the director of GCHQ, the government's secret eavesdropping agency in Cheltenham, is plotting the biggest surveillance system ever created in Britain.
The scope of the project - classified top secret - is said by officials to be so vast that it will dwarf the estimated £5 billion ministers have set aside for the identity cards programme. It is intended to fight terrorism and crime. Civil liberties groups, however, say it poses an unprecedented intrusion into ordinary citizens' lives.
Aimed at placing a "live tap" on every electronic communication in Britain, it will dwarf other "big brother" surveillance projects such as the number plate recognition system and the spread of CCTV.
I will say that the politicians here like to say "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear". Strangely they don't subscribe to this maxim when you are looking into their criminal expenses claims, or government documents that are deeply embarrassing to the current government that were claimed to not exist - but exist, they just didn't want to release them. The UK police don't like the rise of photo and video cameras showing their abuses of the law, so the current corrupt UK government passes a law where is it's crime to photo / record a police officer. http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=839141
Take Nobody's Word For It.
No, its dictatorship, not communism. East Germany happened to be a communist dictatorship., but there are plenty of the other kinds
Bombers are not sheltered by communities, they may be sheltered by one or two people very close to them.
It is like claiming that fascist bombers are being sheltered by the white community (there has been one who actually platned bomds, and other who were planning to until caught in Britain).
The term "thought police" comes from Orwell's "1984", set in what "had once been called England or Britain", so it makes sense that it's happening here. And according to Orwell, "1984" was a criticism of the perversions of communism and fascism. Interesting that you pick up on the extreme left but not the extreme right...
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
3/10. No. You can have as many shotguns and rifles as you want, just no hand guns. And if you go up against the cops with just a hand gun, you're not making a stand but an easy target.
See that's a perfect summary of why I haven't watched Panorama in ages. It's become more and more like the US style of hypermentary: Tell the audience what you're going to tell them. Tell them they should be afraid / excited / awestruck. Play some bass noise. Talk in a Really. Slow. Earnest. Voice. Tell them what you're telling them. Tell them what you've told them. End forty minutes of drawn out information.
Honestly, I would prefer a nice tidy sequence of events and some more in-depth looks at the interesting parts. But I guess my aim is to get information and their target audience is those trying to fill their life with "entertainment". But I do miss being talked to like an intelligent human being.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Politics is circular - the actions once in power of the extreme right and the extreme left are identical. The only difference has been the lies they tell in order to get into power.
You make a good point. I was reading about Romania's dictator and his wife. He was not terribly bright, and his wife was a peasant who dropped-out of school in 4th grade. She used her power to force people to write research papers, and put her name on them, but she was dumb as a doorknob.
It seems government attracts the not-so-bright to positions of power.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall