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British Foreign Secretary on Surveillance Worries: '"Law Abiding Citizens Have N
Bruce66423 writes "The government minister in charge of GCHQ, the UK's equivalent of the NSA, has used those immortal words, 'Only terrorists, criminals and spies should fear secret activities of the British and US intelligence agencies.' From the article: '...In an interview on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, Mr Hague refused to say whether the British government knew of the existence of Prism before it emerged last week. “I can’t confirm or deny in public what Britain knows about and what Britain doesn’t, for obvious reasons,” he said. However, he implied that the revelations had not taken him by surprise.'" While many are concerned about the reach of PRISM overseas, the Finnish Foreign Minister says he plans to continue using Outlook for email.
That statement might have more credibility if it were not for the well documented use of RIPA powers for things unconnected to terrorism and serious crime.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Because no government has ever labeld an alternative point of view a crime.
And this surprises who, exactly?
Come on, are any of us shocked or surprised by any of this, or is it really just yet another confirmation of how the governments really consider us all
guilty of something, and how common law (yes, that English institution) went by the by a long time ago?
I am waiting for the other penny to drop, when people start realising how much of that information gets funneled back in to large US corporations
when they are working on major overseas deals, etc..
Perhaps people will start realising they need to protect their own privacy - by which I mean encryption, not our insightful American friends ideas about
armed militias (hmm, yeah right). The tools have been there for a long time now, most people just dont take it seriously.
At least then they need to let you know they want your information (at least for email, etc...).
Think about it. Everyone knows that the government is made up of perfect angels who would never abuse their powers or make mistakes, so what do innocent people have to fear? Nothing! History has shown us time and time again that corrupt governments simply don't and can't exist, and if you say otherwise, you just have an overactive imagination.
I say our next move should be to install government-owned surveillance equipment in everyone's houses. After all, if you have nothing to hide, what do you have to fear? People could be committing crimes in their houses, so it's justified.
You think it matters what you use for email? If its not encrypted, you can assume PRISM is reading it
Since the actions of the intelligence services are arguably not law abiding, they do not fall under this rule. Maybe they should fear the consequences of their actions.
Definitions according to the act (for dummies):
Criminal: Any person who has either
a) dropped litter, or
b) exceeded the speed limit or failed to indicate,
ever, in his life.
Spies: All persons who ask any minister any questions that he refuses to answer.
Yes, you should fear the minister will order secret activities like imprisonment without trial, torture, or rendition to another country.
..does not mean you have any business going through my life with a fine tooth comb.
The "Nothing to Hide" argument is a fallacy that falls apart upon examination:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110524/00084614407/privacy-is-not-secrecy-debunking-if-youve-got-nothing-to-hide-argument.shtml
https://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/
It's nothing to raise a Führer over!
Interesting comment from Mr. Hague, a minister of the country that gave us the infamous Star Chamber.
From wiki:
The Star Chamber (Latin: Camera stellata) was an English court of law that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster until 1641. ...The court was set up to ensure the fair enforcement of laws against prominent people, those so powerful that ordinary courts could never convict them of their crimes. Court sessions were held in secret, with no indictments, and no witnesses. Evidence was presented in writing. Over time it evolved into a political weapon, a symbol of the misuse and abuse of power by the English monarchy and courts.
I'm sure the victims of the Star Chamber at that time were equally comforted by the thought that if they were innocent, they had nothing to fear from the men in power. Of course.
My point being that any proceedings undertaken in secret, and therefore without oversight from the public will inevitably lead to abuses of power.
I am also troubled by the fact that the present US administration appears to go to great lengths to hide their workings from the US public whom they claim to serve. Just look at the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership as an example. When even free trade agreements are being negotiated in secret, something is not right.
I know I am, even though it's incredibly petty and victimless.
I know the governments are.
I know the rich are.
I know the youth is.
I know the old are.
I know actual criminals are.
I know everyone who acts as if they're free are.
I know everyone who disagrees are.
I know the companies are.
Who isn't a criminal?
"Only terrorists, criminals and spies should fear secret activities of the British and US intelligence agencies." William Hague, the utter of this sentence, left one very important phrase, this being, "if you trust the government." If I were a Brit I wouldn't trust the government. Brits have been guaranteed fewer civil rights than Americans. But as an American I wouldn't trust the American federal or any state or local government to do the "right thing". Politicians make their careers on doing the wrong thing. It is my hope that the revelations of this unwarranted snooping will raise such a stink that some big heads will roll. And I don't believe for a minute that the government only massages this information for patterns when there is a threat. That is government-issued, anti-FUD bullshit at its best. They are always looking for patterns. That's what the NSA and friends do.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
It seem too me that the capacities of surveillance tech has evolved much faster than public understanding and emotion on the issue. As a non-US citizen, I am disgusted by the idea of my emails or metadata derived from them are massively stored away if they pass through the US, or even my own country. I understand and respect that some level of this must exist in modern society, but we need to have checks and balances that can be vetted by he public.
And can it not be wrong, even though I have nothing to fear? Have I nothing to fear from this system even if I am not a criminal?
Ethically, it is limiting to my freedom that there exists a stash of information somewhere that might be abused when taken out of context. Does that not limit my freedom to express radical opinion in private discussions, or even do so satirically? Can I no long play with unpopular ideas using electronic communications? Can I no longer listen to the voice of my opponent without fear of at some point being labeled one of them?
Legally, how can it be that an email is less of my property than a letter I store in a deposit box in my bank, or send in the mail? Is it not mine or the recipients only? If the state had an army of people standing by to make copies of every letter sent, the situation would be perfectly analogous. Is that not ransacking me, or confiscating my property only to provide me a copy?
Safety wise, if a record of my life is aggregated in a single source that I have no knowledge of, how can I know that it is truly safe? How can I ensure politicians spend enough on it's safety? I keep my IDs safe to prevent identity theft. What happens the day my life is stolen, but the theft is classified?
And last but not least, what happens to the balance of power between a state and its people here? The state is the servant of the people, and it should always respect that. When the people become submissive to the state, nothing good happens. We've spend much blood in the past to put it where it belongs, but it always threatens to slip back. We need people like Edward Snowden to blow the whistle when that happens. The very fact that he is now in hiding shows how the power-balance has it's centre of gravity atm.
This is an infringement upon rights forged into the constitution on which this country was founded upon (here in the US anyway). Given the scope of information now available (And has been since before days of digital, but never directly to the judicial branch as previous executive level understood that the economy was much to fragile for that), I'm certain that government corruption will become a thing of the past too right? Or is this going to turn into the next phase of "there's no such thing as organized crime" type thing?
The limited revelations so far have focused on the technical scheme and said little about the regulatory scheme, how it was used operationally. Leaving out that sort of data is like noting that almost everybody has in their house or on their person a device which has a microphone and transmits all it hears to remote listeners, that is a telephone, but leaving out the fact that it is off until you pick it up or turn it on. The existence of this technology and program says very little about if it is legal and if it has been used appropriately.
Turning off telephone service is inconvenient. Turning off the intelligence services ability to gather timely intelligence can perilous.
Bali death toll set at 202
London 7/7 terrorist attacks
Madrid train attacks
9-11 attacks
What has MI-5 had to say?
U.K. tracking 30 terror plots, 1,600 suspects - updated 11/10/2006
British authorities are tracking almost 30 high-priority terrorist plots involving 200 networks and 1,600 suspects, the head of Britain’s domestic spy agency said, adding that many of those under surveillance are homegrown terrorists plotting suicide attacks and other mass-casualty bombings.
What did the next head of MI-5 say a year later?
New MI5 chief says terror suspects in Britain have doubled in the last year - November 6, 2007
The new chief of Britain's intelligence service MI5 painted a troubling picture of growing terrorist threat in Britain, saying the number of suspects in the country has more than doubled in the past year – and that many of the new recruits are teenagers....
and more:
At Least 4,000 Suspected of Terrorism-Related Activity in Britain, MI5 Director Says - November 6, 2007
LONDON, Nov. 5 -- British security officials suspect that at least 4,000 people are involved in terrorism-related activities in Britain and that al-Qaeda's "deliberate campaign" against Britain poses the "most immediate and acute peacetime threat" to the nation in a century, the head of Britain's domestic spy agency said Monday.
And in 2012?
MI5 warns al-Qaida regaining UK toehold after Arab spring
You cripple the security services at your peril. Unlike the IRA, al Qaida doesn't tend to phone in warnings before a blast.
Cheers
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
so they could seize the UK assets stored in failed Icelandic banks (failed after being privatized on the suggestion of UK/US "experts")
if people dont have ordinary names, they are usually up to no good.
British Foreign Secretary on Surveillance Worries: '"Law Abiding Citizens Have N
What is N? Where can I get rid of N? Can I buy more N at the store? Should I be worried if I have N?
FFS, editors. FFS.
*head in hands*
Kid-proof tablet..
Dear high rankin government employees, especially if you are not directly elected: You first. Love, everyone else. PS: We mean it. Until you accept to live in the glass house you want us to live, we won't sell you food, we won't maintain your technology, we won't even talk to you.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
secret courts are making a comeback in the US.
This is a conspiracy theory that a good friend of mine passed along. I have no reason to believe it is true, but I think it can still illustrate the problem with that attitude.
First off, to recap, Anthony Weiner was a member of congress from New York City. He accidentally tweeted a "calvin klein underwear ad" of himself on his official twitter feed. Within minutes he deleted the tweet, but the damage was done. He ended up resigning and the seat he held, which had been held by democrats for something like 80 years, went to a republican.
It turned out Weiner had two twitter accounts, a personal one and the official one. He had been regularly using the private account to send suggestive photos to women across the country. Not illegal, but douchey. Although for all we the public know, his (brilliant and hot) wife was fine with it, maybe they had a look-but-don't-touch agreement. Whatever it was, it was their business alone.
Now, just imagine that somebody at the NSA who was "friendly" to the republicans decided to do a little checking into Weiner and discovered what he was doing on his "private" account. Then they logged into his official twitter account using some back-door or even just something sloppy like a cookie they sniffed off the wire from his own most recent login. Once logged in, they "accidentally" posted the picture and then deleted it a few minutes later.
Viola, career ruined and republicans get a chance to pick up a seat they would never have had a chance at if nobody had been snooping on Weiner.
Like I said at the start, I have zero reason to believe that is actually what happened. He probably just forgot what account he was logged into - all the blood had left his brain for other parts of his body. But, what matters here is just how plausible this theory is. The only thing standing in the way of this sort of corruption is the personal integrity of basically everyone with access to these programs at the NSA. Imagine just how easily this kind of ubiquitous surveillance apparatus can be turned to political corruption. We have way too much of that already, no need to make it any easier.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Nobody (including lawyers, judges and other experts) has a full list of everything that's a crime in the US.
Terrorist has no objective definition at all.
And spy may be defined or not - we don't know because it's classified.
So, yup you only need to fear your government if you belong to one of those groups. ... ;)
Or have no way of verifying you don't.
So, I suppose, the question is, "What are we going to do about it?"
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
...paedophiles. It's paedophiles, criminals, terrorists. Appeal to emotion before fear!
Close enough.
Yes I suppose you consider Allan Turing a hardend criminal i that case. You only drygged and killed him.
After all, you, as a law abiding citizen, have nothing to fear, right ?
Law Abiding Citizens have N
I realize that British English and US English are different things, but could someone please translate the headline into US English?
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
He left out wankers. And buggerers.
When Blair was visible Prime Minister of the UK, he advanced the most obscene warmongering and police state powers the nation had ever experienced, but as leader of the Labour party, there were many policies his people stood behind but could not get passed as new laws in the House of Commons. When his two goons, the heads of the Liberal and Conservative party, gained power, they immediately began implementing the programs Blair had previously been unable to complete.
This is why the false dichotomy of left versus right exists in Western politics. What the sheeple won't accept from a left wing regime, they'll tolerate from a right wing one, and vice versa. America sees the same with the pretence of differences between the Democrat and Republican parties.
Blair placed his people in command and control positions across every aspect of British society, and his power has only grown since he appeared to leave office. Blair uses the inter-faith organisation that he founded and heads to infiltrate nations like Libya and Syria, recruit key figures, and use them to run terror campaigns to over-throw the existing regimes. The leaders of Syria and Libya were idiotic enough to consider Blair a powerful friend after 9/11, and gave Blair's people full access to all areas of their administration.
You Yanks will not remember that Blair was the driving force behind the Kosovo war, a conflict Blair intended to use to draw America into its first major ground war since Vietnam. As it turned out, the US army was scared yellow by Serbia's soviet training and weapons system, and never did more than bomb Serbian civilian facilities from VERY high up in the air. Then came the convenient events of 9/11, quickly followed by America's genocidal invasion of Afghanistan.
Blair's spying on the population of the UK is his model for the planet. The spying has NOTHING to do with criminals, 'terrorists' or spies. It has everything to do with ensuring the British public can be more perfectly manipulated by mining their opinions and responses to propaganda in real-time. Blair created an organisation called 'Common Purpose' that follows the same goals as organisations that sought to recruit future leaders in Soviet Russia and Red China (and no, these organisations were NOT the Communist parties).
Blair's stated purpose is to stoke the fires of global warfare until they engulf China and Russia, creating a World War. Blair's main political ally is Putin, not any American politician- America is far too easy to manipulate to require any special treatment. Blair arranged the circumstances of Nato's disastrous little war in Georgia, so the fall out would win back Russia's de facto control of the Ukraine.
Today, Blair is over-seeing the staging of terror attacks against Syria from training and supply camps in Jordan, using funds from Saudi Arabia, intelligence control centres in Qatar, and arms flown in from Croatia. All America is required to do is give its seal of approval to the operation. Given that Syria is actually under Russia's sphere of influence, you may well guess the chess moves here are rather complex.
What Blair is engaged in is breaking down the rule of international law, and getting the Human Race accustomed to turning a blind eye to an increasing level of atrocities against civilian populations (remind you of any other time in recent history?). Syria and Libya are about building increasing numbers of very mobile Islamic mercenaries to supplement the extraordinary number of western military contractors created by Blair's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Before Blair invaded Iraq, Britain saw its greatest popular uprising ever, with millions of people actively expressing their opposition to the war. Blair simply used his security apparatus to create the anti-war organisations that led such protests into the ground, placing his people, like George Galloway, into key leadership positions.
Blair's massive spying programs against the people of the UK are partially designed to identify and kill/co-opt
British Foreign Secretary on Surveillance Worries: '"Law Abiding Citizens Have N
Yeah, that quote is really, really old and gets used by politicians a lot.
Lately, here in Germany, we've started throwing it back at them whenever they are hiding something from us. Like who gives them how much money or which companies they work for after their term, or who paid their campaign, or indeed their last holiday.
The "if you have nothing to hide..." should be told to them a lot more often, because they've been abusing it for a long, long time.
Also, since we know that sexual favours are as successful in swaying people as financial incentives, I would like a full record of who my politicians have been sleeping with during their terms. As there are more lies in this area than in any other, we should have 24/7 surveilance and automated reporting. What? You don't have anything to hide, do you?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Law abiding citizens have nothing to fear from the surveilance state.
Unless you piss off the wrong company, goverment, or people.
Or we need to make an example of you.
Or we need to send a message to your peer group.
Or you have something we want.
Or we want you out of the way for whatever reason.
Or we need a good photo-op.
But other than that... You're perfectly safe to be a good little worker and consumer who does as they are told and don't speak out. You'll be fine.
Sorry, wtf, seriously??
References?
Privacy is terrorism.
As we are all criminals that means that they can watch everyone. Who watches the watchmen
There have already been stories of non-terrorist, non-criminal people being deported from the US when going there on vacation because of innocent remarks made on their social networking page that were mis-interpreted by the DHS.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Has our society become so timid and fearful that we are willing to sacrifice long cherished rights to freedom, liberty and privacy to the state in return for a dubious promise of security?
I say dubious, because for all the vaunted survelliance ongoing right now, it failed to stop the Woolwich stabbing attack. It failed to stop the Boston marathon bombings.
In all the gruesome examples you cited, note that the acts of terrorism took place despite all the surveillance already taking place then. The effort has failed. How much more freedom and privacy will you demand the public sacrifice in order to achieve greater efficacy?
I think we are on a very slippery slope, where the temptation is all too great for the ruling parties to take the path of least resistance and extend the coverage gradually to all undesirables and enemies of the state - from terrorists to child pornographers to murderers to robbers to copyright infringers and finally to common members of the public. If you think this is impossible, look to China where it is happening even as we speak. The Chinese government even justified its censorship and surveillance of the internet on the basis of public security in a White Paper , including the following gem :-
China advocates the rational use of technology to curb dissemination of illegal information online. Based on the characteristics of the Internet and considering the actual requirements of effective administering of the Internet, it advocates the exertion of technical means, in line with relevant laws and regulations and with reference to common international practices, to prevent and curb the harmful effects of illegal information on state security, public interests and minors.
What lies at the end of the slippery slope? Alan Moore might have the answer. I suggest you look at his book, it is an intriguing read.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landsbanki_Freezing_Order_2008
"Get off the cross - we need the wood" - Tori Amos
before mass prosecution of certain ( ethnic ) groups broke out, the government also told its citizens: "Ordinary German citizens in good standing have nothing to fear from GeStaPo or SD, which services are there to protect them".
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
'Only terrorists, criminals, spies and conservatives should fear secret activities of the British and US intelligence agencies.'
Just saying.
Thanks. From there I'll search some more. :(
Shocking how "terrorism" is abused for everything
Privacy is terrorism.
GCHQ using American Prism system to spy on British people is illegal. Snoopers charter was rejected. He knows this, its not legal. He's frightened, so he's threatening everyone trying to silence critics.
Coded in those words, are the threat that if you complain, you will be viewed as a terrorist or a criminal. He's doing this ahead of facing the House of Commons, so they are a little scared to face him down. If you've ever been to the UK, you'll know how bad it is there. Creepy surveillance society with CCTV everywhere and everyone pretending to agree with it, lest they get targetted.
You think you live in a democracy, that the people run the country by choosing representatives. Then you wake up one day, and the country is run by a secret government department in collusion with a foreign power. You can try and elect a new representative to overturn it, but anyone worthwhile will already be monitored and controlled. Anyone that might fix things, can never be allowed to dismantle their spying apparatus.
WHY IS IT WRONG TO PROTEST THIS?
The UK has the European rights written into law, the right to privacy is ENSHRINED IN LAW, without those rights we don't have a democracy.
I notice we elected Cameron to dismantle this surveillance state, and he's had to bow to US pressure and so Snoopers charter came along. So what is my vote worth now? Nothing?
If I have nothing to hide then no one has legitimacy or even moral ground to stand on and spy on me.
The proper way to find and punish criminal/terrorist activity is to first prove reasonable suspicion of crime THEN investigate by gathering incriminating evidence, and not the opposite of fishing for incriminating stuff then slap criminal intent on it hoping it'll stick.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
"Intelligence agencies" are spies, per definition. So... they should fear themselves, and each other.
Let me add: things generally considered ok today may be viewed as not ok in the future.
how IT is changing the world - http://max.zamorsky.name
Their minister for the environment does not believe in global warming either. So the UK is in good safe hands.
J.
Up until the Human Rights Act of 1998, which incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law, there was no legal right to privacy in the United Kingdom. There was some coverage in areas of legal and medical privacy under "Breach of Confidence" and related legislation around harrassment and data protection, but fundamentally the idea of "Privacy" is a very new one in UK law.
To see a UK politician (not just that, but one of the top 5 members of the ruling Government) being so cavalier about surveillance by organisations which have no judicial oversight, and justifying it with the old saw "you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide"...
This is the same politician (William Hague) who, in a speech to the Conservative Party's annual political conference in 2001 (at this point, he was the party leader, and the Conservatives were the opposition party to the ruling Labour government of the time... the Conservatives are now the government, having formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats after the last election) said:
"I think Britain would be all right, if only we had a different Government.
A Conservative Government that speaks with the voice of the British people.
A Conservative Government never embarrassed or ashamed of the British people.
A Conservative Government that trusts the people..."
So now, the Government wants to know what the voice of the British people are saying, so they are willing to spy on them.
The Government is either embarrassed by, ashamed of, or afraid of, the British people, so they are willing to spy on them.
The Government is so mistrustful of the people, that they are willing to spy on them,
And if there is any objection from the people, the response from the Government is "you only have something to fear if you have something to hide".
Sorry Mr Hague, but as far as I know I have nothing to hide (disclaimer, I am not a UK lawyer with extensive and up-to-the-minute knowledge of all laws on the statute books in the UK). All the same, I personally object strongly to having my legally conferred right to privacy circumscribed to satisfy the voyeurism tendencies of some random idiot who feels like peeking.
so now if we don't have repost stories we have repost comments.
in other news MI5 chief thinks MI5 is necessary, despite failures.
you could have included the link about a guy getting shot. in the head. for merely looking foreign and running to work on the wrong day.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Oh good grief. They didn't declare Iceland to be "terrorist".
They used a law called the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (note how two of those three things aren't "terrorist") to freeze the assets of an Icelandic bank branch in the UK. They did so under provisions of the law that involve preventing actions harmful to the UK economy.
One can certainly question whether this was warranted or not, but it had nothing to do with terrorism. Nice try though.
Life needs more saving throws.
In this case, the OP if full of shit
Life needs more saving throws.
What does MI5 have to say in justification? We're tracking 30 terror plots, erm 4000 terror plots and if you MAKE US ASK FOR WARRANTS AND EVIDENCE OF WHAT WE JUST CLAIMED, then they'll get away and kill you.
Really scare tactics. Nothing more. The rules are: suspicion, followed by warrant, followed by third party check of the warrant. It is NOT an independent judge saying these are plots, it's the man with the job of marketing MI5 saying these are plots. Thus likely to be bullshit. The judge is there to keep the spooks from going off the lease and, for example, siding with a foreign power over their own citizens. Something that seems to have happened here.
These laws are all to protect the public from the man in a uniform. Because the man in the uniform always thinks he's on the side of good. Putin rose from the KGB, not from any terrorist organization.
Mubarak killed 300 just in the final protests, his 'disappearance' total is believed to be in the tens of thousands.
Agreed that they should never have used terrorism laws like this, they should've enacted emergency legislation, but they did the right thing in seizing those assets, especially given that Iceland basically took billions and now refuses to pay it back. It's the thief of Europe - at least everyone else is trying their best to pay back what they owe unlike Iceland that just outright stole and are now carrying on as if nothing happened because they bankrupted themselves and just refuse to ever pay back everything they took.
Interesting. Isn't that exactly what China has been telling its citizens?
Those that say more surveillance is better. I feel sad for them, they have been brainwashed under terrorism fear.
US has internal TSA agency and over all these years it has failed to catch even single terrorist. It has managed to abuse small children, honest people, elderly, etc...
Its not that hones person has something to hide. Its question when ever government has any right in invade out privacy in any way. Terrorism has come a tool for governments to drive throw methods and tools they should not have.
And even honest people has secrets, online banking login credentials (Contract says those must be kept secret for example.), etc... Im sure my employer would not like me telling everyone things they have labelled as trade secrets...
If US wants less terrorism, maybe they should stop messing with rest of the world first. Bomb village in middle east, of course those survivors are going to hate you. Are you fellows stupid or something?
I don't like the fact the Tories are currently pushing the snooper's charter and so forth either but your post is completely and utterly ignorant.
Our previous left-wing Labour government bought in, or tried to bring in:
- The intelligence modernisation programme, that was their version of the snooper's charter
- A sweeping DNA database that held DNA of innocent people
- RIPA, used by any public sector organisation such as councils to actively spy on people who do such trivial things as forget to pick up dog poo if their dog poos and they don't notice
- The Digital Economy Act that allowed for web blocking, three strikes, and other measures, to allowably be enforced through monitoring of people's connections
- A national ID card database
- Stop and search powers for the police to arbitrarily stop and search people
- Supported extraordinary rendition, secret courts, use of torture
In contrast this government has limited DNA storage to actual criminals, ditched the DNA database, restricted use of RIPA the Lib Dem section of it at least, has thus far managed to block the IMP/Snooper's charter.
This government is bad, but on the civil liberties front it's a thousand fold better than Labour were even now. FWIW I'm not a Tory or Labour voter, I couldn't ever trust Labour because they still support much of the above even now, and I hate the Tories because their leadership pays way way too much attention and gives way too much credence to the vocal 1/3rd or so of the party that are far right.
This too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Wolfgang#2005_Labour_conference_incident
Mao, Stalin and Hitler all said the same.
Who steals 1/3 of my income? Not Muslims, it's the government.
Who murders women and children with drones? It's not hackers, it's the government.
Who am I afraid of? It's not 3rd world goat herders, it's the government.
What if it's true that in a series of well suitably positioned individuals, some will, irrespective of previous screening, be unable to resist the ability to abuse this information for political or personal gain?
What if the same is true at the level of an administration?
What if it's true that people simply cannot live with the fact of this level of surveillance? I recall an old joke that went something like
"How do you know it's going to be a bad day? When you wake up and see the 60 Minutes truck in your driveway.
the deep implication of this joke is that , as Edward Snowden alludes to, everyone or at least most people in society are consciously or unconsciously afraid that some hand picked series of facts culled from the totality of their lives, suitably presented , will make them look guilty of something they never did.
The belief is, guilt can be produced on demand. At any arbitrary future time, a series of revenge seeking "witnesses" can be produced to attest to whatever narrative the state wants to generate and the state can generate any narrative it wants through a process of selective culling and distortion of things you did and said and knowing who your enemies are.
The only thing preventing this from being realized is the incapacity of the state to preserve and access the ultra fine details of your life .
But now they have that.
Could a Cheney resist this kind of power ? Did they when they went after Valerie Plame and Edward Wilson ?
What if Cheney had this power earlier as he was aspiring to political power ? What kind of trail of destruction of other people's lives would he have left? Who would be in prison for life right now over something that never happened?
We all know that people seeking revenge or power will stop at nothing. Witness the recent spate (!) of ricin letter framings , one by the framee's wife.
A friend I have who is a lawyer claims that in at least 60% -70% of divorces where there are children, one spouse will try to accuse the other of molesting them . If there's a bomb you can drop on your enemy, you will.
A lot of people cooling their heels in GITMO were put their through just this kind of petty revenge seeking on the part of local "informants".
. People have deep and twisted motivations and especially it seems, with respect to revenge against real or perceived enemies, just ordinary people can justify anything; no one can be trusted.
Some say this is what the Iraq War was really about- Bush tasking revenge in some primal macho way against Hussein for the plot against Bush Sr.
Given human nature, the nature of politics and the "justice" system, the deep question is- can anyone be trusted with this power and also will other people accept the premise that there exists a system in which this power just can't be abused? If all that' s needed to destroy someone's life is the will and a near demented, perspectiveless prosecutor like Carmen Ortiz
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/01/guide-finger-pointing-after-aaron-swartzs-suicide/61015/
and anything goes for anyone at any time. \
Just think how this could play out. "Kill em early" would be the slogan of the enfranchised against people who at age 15 or 18 or 25 fit the profile of "the enemy" and get targeted for selective "enforcement".
I think that the answer to the question "will society accept this" (and really, can anyone be trusted with it) is- not without some kind of transparency the nature of which we have not yet invented. The problem is transparency is the opposite of stealth and need-to-know.
"In an interview on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, Mr Hague refused to say whether the British government knew of the existence of Prism before it emerged last week"
That's a "Yes, of course."
"'Only terrorists, criminals and spies should fear secret activities of the British and US intelligence agencies."
Oh, isn't that cute. Someone who's never heard of false positives, even though there are specific examples that have been validated in the courts. What about people like Brandon Mayfield? Invasion of his home? Surreptious collection of DNA evidence from his family? Bugging of his house? Followed by not only arrest, but without informing his family or anyone else. Or how about Maher Arar, an innocent Canadian citizen detained while passing through the US while returning from Tunsia, and then deported to Syria where he was tortured for a year (i.e. "rendition").
Innocent people *do* have something to fear, you moron. We have good reasons. Playing this "innocent people have nothing to fear" card is ridicuous. Even if you are trying your best to do it right (and I assume law enforcement and intellgence services is doing just that), innocent people are sometimes going to get swept up in this kind of widespread surveillance. It's inevitable, and there are many examples where it has actually happened. This is not a hypothetical situation. That is why having proper court oversight and rights such as "innocent until proven guilty" are so crucial: to catch the instances where a mistake has been made. All these unchallengable secret lists, secret courts, and indefinite detention without habeas corpus stuff has to stop. It undermines the confidence that the innocent are supposed to have that if a mistake is made, the truth will come out and set them free. So, stop insulting us with demonstrably incorrect platitudes and fix things.
And that does not even consider the possibility, how ever remote it might be, that you might also have a bad apple in those intelligence agencies that decides to break the rules. Even if there is no one with malice in their hearts, it is inevitable that people will get thrown onto lists mistakenly, and then they get the fun of having to put up with extra scrutiny every time they travel. It's crazy that someone could be unknowingly put on some secret, unchallengable list, all because they said the words "bomb" and "plane" in the same message on some social media site and it was picked up by these dragnets.
Right now it seems that Android, Microsoft, Apple are all signee's to PRISM, I've not heard anyone mention RIM yet - but I guess that's because they are Canadian and probably monitored under the Canadian governments jurisdiction. So what to consider when buying your next phone?
Which phone is most compatible with Tor? Is there a Tor enabled phone?
That is a relief! I was a bit worried, but now I am completely satisfied with this assurance.
No, you don't.
Whicih rather indicates where your bias lies, doesn't it?
You have nothing to fear. We're stuffing you into the ghetto for your own protection.
Interestingly, this statement could just as well come from Teheran, Damascus, or Tripoli before the regime fell.
I guess the interesting point is the definition of "law abiding citizen", now and in the future.
"Only terrorists, criminals and spies should fear secret activities of the intelligence agencies", William Hague
.. reveals that councils in Great Britain have authorised over 8,500 RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act) operations in the past two years .. Authorities have used covert surveillance for reasons including spying on their own employees, dog fouling, people breaking the smoking ban and even the test purchase of a puppy'! link
..
`New research
* Five authorities have used their powers to spy on people suspected of breaking the smoking ban
* Suffolk County Council used RIPA powers to make a "test purchase" -- of a puppy
* Bromley Council spied on a charity shop to see people "fly tipping" donations at their door
* Investigation of unlawful plying for hire by private hire drivers
* Trading Standards exercise investigating allegations of underage alcohol sales
* Offences under Feed Hygiene Regulations
* Noise nuisance
* Alleged disabled blue badge fraud
* Ascertain if person is walking their dog cleaning up after it but then depositing poop bag in trees, grass or on road
* Carrying out graffiti
AccountKiller
Since it's my understanding here in the US you can commit a crime with a penalty of 6 months in jail and a good size fine for simply picking up a feather.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Just like only infidels, heretics and witches had to fear the Spanish Inquisition
It is not possible to be a "Law abiding citizen" in a country where there is a law for everything and ignorance of the law is no excuse. It's illegal for me to put the wrong kind of trash in the wrong container outside my home. They're now talking about putting sensors in my trashcans to detect their contents. I'm not kidding.
Law abiding security agencies have no need to worry if the citizens have an understanding of what information is being gathered, from where, and why.
We are the 198 proof..
...are we sure that the man isn't in fact an American spy ?
Sounds like every major airline in the United States, really.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
OK, Mr. Hague; don't forget to give us access to your bank account(s) and tax filing records. Oh, and while you are at it, don't forget to leave the bathroom door open when you are taking a shit. After all, you have nothing to hide.
Maybe if one analysed the root cause of the threats, and worked on those instead? Like the killings of middle eastern people in order to get their oil, or started thinking about how the central bank distorts the marked, making the prices go up with the consequence of people getting poor and angry. One would not feel the need to spy on everyone?
Since the people who are doing the spying decide who's law-abiding, his assurances mean nothing. There are enough laws on the books to bring anyone--everyone--to trial. See the film "Sins of the Fathers" for an example, in this case how in the UK the innocent have nothing to fear. All you need to have done is roomed with, had a drink with, been in a study group with, someone the govt is going after and they'll be going after you too.
.. I wonder if you actually have to fail an IQ-test to become a politician. :(
I thought the article was going to be about censo
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Im not sure you can really call the Boston marathon bombings a failure of the police state. Afterall, they caught up with the two guys only after having -shut down the entire city of Boston-... Something unfathomable before PATRIOTACT.
Ah, the old "if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" argument. A sure sign that you can't trust someone is that you hear this from them.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
OP if full of shit
Who knows? It depends on the level of the constipation the OP experiences. The act is named confusingly, though.
Have a big dish of whale while you're at it.
British Foreign Secretary on Surveillance Worries: '"Law Abiding Citizens Have Nothing to Worry About." Didn't a certain German Chancellor tell his people the same thing?
And how is that bad? I'm all for staying as far away from totalitarian way of running a country, but man, this was one of the very few sane things that anyone did when faced with Icelandic insanity.
For those who just don't appreciate what has happened in Iceland, let me give a condensed story. Iceland was a tiny nation of farmers and fishermen. Suddenly more and more people see themselves as bankers/investors, and the whole country gets converted to a hedge fund almost overnight. The Icelandic banks were issuing paper worth many times their national GDP (orders of magnitude more!) You have people who have no fucking idea of what they are doing turned investors. And I mean those were people who had no idea. You'd think of people with serious investment banking backgrounds - nope. They literally had no idea. They just found a niche and decided to exploit it, given all the free money available on the markets at the time. I mean, come on, their banks would do stuff like buy 10% interest in a major U.S. airline and refuse to even talk to anyone from the board. While all of this was borne by stupidity, it was all in effect criminal negligence executed on an astounding scale.
Doing anything to prevent the country-turned-hedge-fund a.k.a. Iceland stealing any more money from abroad is a good thing in my book.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
British Foreign Secretary on Surveillance Worries: '"Law Abiding Citizens Have Nothing to Worry About"
The same could be said for governments, too. Maybe Britain would be willing to open up it's government records as a show of good faith?
The threat and/or use of force to coerce political change.
When the Government have the monopoly on force, when they have the monopoly on Justice, and when they have the monopoly on policy, they are the terrorists, yet to them the People become the enemy.
Well, if we're to be damned, let's all be damned for what we are.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
In this case, they must unhang those sentenced to death and unjail the others convicted at the Nuremberg Trials. Fsck Godwin.
You're just upset that Iceland refused to bail out its banks when they fucked up, let them all go bankrupt and lose money, and now they're doing better than every european country that keeps shoveling money over to the fat cat bankers (or just letting them outright steal it like in Cyprus) then tries "austerity" to make up the difference.
Anyone who thinks third party voting is the cure to the problems the US is facing such as erosion of civil liberties, please explain to me why this is happening in Britain. Where they have more than two parties.
These governments have much greater capabilities of surveillance and genocide than any of Hitler's henchmen could have ever imagined. The present geopolitical order is beyond Nazis. Let's start using a new standard of comparison: Armilus/Antichrist/Ad-Dajjal/Kalyug/Apocalyptic.
It's the thief of Europe - at least everyone else is trying their best to pay back what they owe unlike Iceland that just outright stole and are now carrying on as if nothing happened because they bankrupted themselves and just refuse to ever pay back everything they took.
Holy crap, Batman! 2008 was only five years ago, yet you've forgotten already?!?
Iceland (along with the rest of the world) *finally* wised up to the fact that Wall St. was bundling crap mortgages (that never had a chance of being paid for) into investments that they flogged to every sucker willing to believe them. Iceland correctly viewed this as fraud and quit the game realizing the croupiers had it rigged.
You're just jealous you didn't come to the same conclusion in time. Sucker!
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Ethical government agencies and employees have nothing to fear from a public examination of their methods and activities.
Have gnu, will travel.
I'm all for staying as far away from totalitarian way of running a country
Then you'd appreciate the Icelandic government response to all this: they let the whole thing collapse instead of spending a decade covering up and bailing out the bankers and "investors", then trying to make up the shortfall through austerity programs or just stealing the money from depositors like in Cyprus.
then you have nothing to hide. Or so it is said.
Congress: If you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide.
Mr. President: If you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide.
NSA: If you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide.
Let the people see the records. We know you did nothing wrong, so why the need to hide them?
For some reason congress, the president, and three letter agencies feel the need to keep things secret from those they serve. Again; if you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide. So the real reason for the secrecy must be that they have done something wrong.
Or perhaps there are times when people have a need to keep things private. And keeping those things private, we the people thought, was protected by the law.
The government should not have any power that the people do not have.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable SEARCHES and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized... I know its considered radicalism to quote from the Bill of Rights, but here it is.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
On reading that quote, my immediate reaction was "how can I tell this official to go f&%# himself"... And then I remembered.
I'm a fan of this 'total information awareness', it makes sharing my thoughts with the government so much easier.
There was a time in the 1800s where if you were a woman who defied your husband, you were a criminal.
There was a time not to long ago, within many people's lifetimes in fact, that if you were a black american and went off the plantation, you were a criminal.
There was a time even more recently where if you were a man having sex with another man, you were a criminal. In fact, in many US states this is still true.
How is a society supposed to change, evolve, and grow when the government is acting as big brother into the lives of everyone? If this kind of surveillance had been around 200 years ago, then women would still not have the vote and blacks would still be slaves, because anyone who dared think otherwise would be caught and arrested.
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." - Lord Acton 1887
or
"Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it" - William Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham and British Prime Minister 1770
And probably more true today than back then as politicians seem to be even less moral than their predecessors.
The Act was mostly about terrorism, so when it was voted on in Parliament if you opposed it you were supporting terrorism. They tacked that bit on and were careful to word it such that it didn't only apply to terrorism. The House of Lords actually picked up on that but were unable to fix it.
It is a classic example of using terrorism to pass all kinds of bullshit into law by making it extremely difficult to oppose. We looked like complete dicks for using it against Iceland when it was clear to most people that that was never its intended purpose, or at least not the stated purpose of the Act when pitched to Parliament and the voting public.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
is declaring everyone they don't like terrorists, criminals and spies.
Well, they won't admit it, they will stick to the policy of deny everything at all possible costs. There is a means to an end of it though, providing this power directly to the judicial branch will result in failure of the economy, and such actions include gov't paychecks that will eventually fail to cash. The war on terror is over, we lost.
Only if you do what you're told.
Do you have references to the bit about the House of Lords? Just curious, would like to read more about it.
One reason why we don't want ubiquitous surveilance is that we don't want law enforcement mining people's daily activities looking for new things to make illegal. This would be too easy to do. Is Mr. X politically inconvenient? "Well, let's see if he does something regularly that we can argue people shouldn't do, and see lots of people do this, and a statiscal analysis shows that this behavior has certain negative consequences." Now, we have a new law specially tailored to allow the arrest of this person they don't like.
Another reason is that people do many "illegal" things that are not necessarily harmful or unethical at the time. If they weren't being monitored, they'd never be caught, because there are no consequences to anyone, so there would otherwise be nothing to trigger any investigation.
In this digital age, having to get a warrant for every search impedes the efficiency of law enforcement. And that is exactly why we want them to have to get warrants. Otherwise, the sorting factor that keeps people in and out of our crowded and money-sucking prisons needs to be objective based on evidence of wrongdoing and an impartial judge and jury. If law enforcement can make anything a crime, then the sorting factor becomes subjective based on corruption and which people police officers and prosecutors like.
Statists who wish to pry into every detail of our lives ALWAYS use the same cop-out justification for their actions: (1) It makes everyone safer, and (2) If you don't have something to hide, you have nothing to worry about.
The simple truth is that everyone has things happening in their life that they do not wish to broadcast. These things usually contribute nothing to public safety or welfare: It could be a discussion with a friend about cheating on a test, or a lie that you told one friend to protect another friend's feelings, or your own medical diagnosis of AIDS. Any responsibility the government feels to protect us does not give them the right to record every word we say, every move we make, every book or Web site we read, or every thought we think.
"Only terrorists, criminals and spies should fear secret activities of the British and US intelligence agencies."
Very true. The problem is that the intelligence agencies also get to decide who is labelled a terrorist, criminal or spy.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
You could have made exactly the same argument in the German Democratic Republic in 1974.
We are watching you.
the handful of icelandic banks, which had controllers and boards and advisers of an international nature, went bankrupt, just like the US banks and just like the UK banks and just like the German banks.
they all got bailed out. none of them are any more crooks than any others.
sorry these arguments about the 'exceptional evil in iceland' do not hold water. icelands banks had the same issues as goldman sachs, deutschebank, UK banks, etc. the same people were involved in some cases.
...there's nothing new here. We've all been talking about how the government spies on us for decades. Anyone remember Carnivore?
We all need to be doing more with encrypting our email. It's possible to do with pretty much any email client out there, even gMail. No, my email is not encrypted. I have set it up in the past to try it out, but it does no good to do it by yourself. All need to do it for it to be of any use.
The government had no way of covering it up even if they wished to. As I've said, they were in the hole many times their worth. At least in the almost-failed Euro countries, you've had debt on the order of GDP. In Iceland, GDP was a joke compared to what was lost.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Has anyone else reading this wondered who the "Foreign Secretary on Surveillance" is, and why he's so worried?
But the Barons insisted on the Magna Carta, nonetheless.
Are we made of weaker flesh today?
Are we not Free Men?
As the header said, if you have fine organizations like the Stasi and the KGB also saying "if you're not doing anything wrong, you should have noting to worry about".. then it must surely be true ;-) Besides, the Chinese *also* are very pleased with the direction the North American intelligence services are taking...
Nothing to fear from PRISM, Big Brother is watching you, that is something to fear. 1984 here we come.
Pedro48, AKA Pedro Mileski AKA Edward Miller
Also everybody commits crimes. With hundreds of thousands of pages of laws, "Ignorance of the Law" is a darn good excuse, but the courts won't accept it. Also with so many laws, we all are breaking them every day.
If we let the government get away with this, we will be in a position of being picked up [and put away] for some crime anytime the government wants to "get" us. And when will that be? Ask the Tea Partiers about the IRS.
Only terrorists, criminals and spies should fear secret activities of the British and US intelligence agencies. Ha!