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Online Activities To Be Recorded By UK ISPs
SmartAboutThings writes "The United Kingdom online monitoring law just got published, showcasing some disturbing facts. The paper is 123 pages long and is actually a draft of the Communications Data Bill. You might not be so happy to find out that from now, every single thing you do online will be recorded and stored by the good old Internet Service providers (ISP). What do we mean by online activity? Well, everything."
Nothing to hide, nothing to fear.
no, but it will.
It may take several attempts, but it eventually will.
The reason is simple: the powers that be *want* this. Much like SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, and whatever the current generation mutant strain is, keeps getting brandished about like a giant black rubber donkey dildo. The public says no, but the powers that be want to fuck us. They keep whipping out dildo after dildo, refusing to take the hint that we *DON'T WANT ANY* dildos, not just that specific one.
When they finally manage to snooker us into taking it (all the way I might add, without any lube), then they tell all their friends about it, and from then on, that type of dildoing becomes standard practice, for everyone, everywhere.
What we need is to propose counter legislation FORBIDDING proposals of this type. Simply defeating every proposed terror dick they whip out of their rape kit won't work.
It's usually standard practice to use a car analogy on Slashdot, but I find your new item quite refreshing. And a point well made.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
I think Governments need to be very very careful about going down this route. Should this go ahead I expect any ciminals to encrypt all their network traffic via a VPN or proxy as well as measrues such as sending emails encryped via PGP.
That's easy. It's already a crime in the UK to refuse to hand over encryption keys. They don't even have to prove that you have the encryption keys, or that the allegedly encrypted data is actually encrypted.
Before long mere use of encryption, or even possession of random data that could be mistaken for encrypted data will be illegal in the UK.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Here, we are simply shifting electrons around, real wealth and power are elsewhere.
People used to make just sound waves with their own mouths. Those waves couldn't propagate farther than a few meters. Still, those people were often arrested, imprisoned and killed. A technology that allows anyone to talk to unlimited audience over unlimited distances [on this planet] is far more dangerous.
Speech in general is dangerous. All palace revolts, all military coups, all popular revolutions started with people who were speaking.
In an ideally peaceful society free speech would be completely outlawed. Without being able to communicate you can only lead a revolt of one, easily suppressable. However such a society is likely to stagnate (see USSR.)
The real problem with human societies is the people. Someone always wants something from others, be it money or power or attention. Those are called "troublemakers." But this is normal behavior for homo sapiens. We might just as well ask molecules to stop their Brownian motion. It's what they are.
Democracy allows free speech on a slim chance that some of those new proposals are beneficial. In practice new political leaders only want to unseat current political leaders, and they use the people as fuel and cannon fodder for their purposes. Will Romney be better than Obama? Or worse? Or the same? Nobody knows; this is quantum information - the act of listening to either of those politicians changes the message. On top of that, the electorate is usually not even aware of all pertinent facts - because the facts are hard to find and because they are hard to comprehend. The electorate simply remembers who called them last and votes for that guy.
I could even understand if a government would offer zero free speech in exchange for absolute safety and stability. But this is not going to happen, in any country. You would lose your free speech but the government would be even more abusive. Losing your freedom of speech (or freedom of speaking anonymously) does not come with any benefits whatsoever. Not to you, at least. The government benefits mightily.