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UK Telcos Went Above and Beyond To Cooperate With GCHQ
An anonymous reader writes with this news from the Guardian: "GCHQ lobbied furiously to keep secret the fact that telecoms firms had gone 'well beyond' what they were legally required to do to help intelligence agencies' mass interception of communications, both in the UK and overseas. GCHQ feared a legal challenge under the right to privacy in the Human Rights Act if evidence of its surveillance methods became admissable in court. GCHQ assisted the Home Office in lining up sympathetic people to help with "press handling", including the Liberal Democrat peer and former intelligence services commissioner Lord Carlile, who this week criticised the Guardian for its coverage of mass surveillance by GCHQ and the US National Security Agency."
... why can't they prevent that soldier boy Lee Rigby from being chopped to death in the Woolwich area of London, by two Moslems from Africa ?
In America too ... refugees from Somalia returned to Somalia to become terrorists
If the surveillances are so effective, why can't they prevent all these from happening ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
This morning I saw a British politician claiming that without the ability to tap into all devices, then the public is never going to be able to be safe from terrorism. This argument fails when inevitably, knowing human nature (absolute power corrupts absolutely), the only end result must be a police state.
Are these the same dissolute Lords who ran the Lloyd's of London scam, opening it up to investment in car insurance by Americans, and then swapping the car insurance papers for asbestos insurance? And then, when sued, the plaintiffs were MURDERED? And then the plaintiffs' childrens' law offices burgled of the evidence?
Are these the same Lords who raped Ireland? Are these the same Lords who ran colonialism in the 1700s? Are these the same Lords who made millions of pounds off of whisky production, destroying their own people?
Are these the honorable British Lords who were foisted off on us in the form of such banks as Goldman Sachs?
Are these the same British Lords for whom the phrase has come about, "as drunk as a Lord"?
I thought we got rid of these British Lords, and with good reason. Can we do it again?
There's a reason I resent people calling me sir: I am not such a scoundrel as to have ever recieved a british title.
Well The Guardian newspaper, who originally ran this story, also spelled it incorrectly.
should be kicked out of the upper house for assisting in the pro-surveillance propaganda. They helped keep things secret for fear the rule of law would be duly applied. Its a disgrace. Those shills should be locked up.
That's what the Grauniad is famous for.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
It isn't about us-vs-them. It isn't OK to do it because the other guy does it. It isn't OK for the other guy to do it because we do it.
Governments simply cannot be trusted to protect our privacy. Neither can private internet companies. Only by rebuilding the infrastructure from the ground up to guard privacy at all steps with strong encryption and anonymity can we do that.
lobbied furiously to keep secret the fact that telecoms firms had gone 'well beyond' what they were legally required to do to help intelligence agencies' mass interception of communications, both in the UK and overseas.
Had this shoe been on the "other foot" - I mean in those other "non democratic countries", folks here and on other websites would be saying somethig to the effect...
"What do you expect? We're so lucky here in , where we are democratic and have 'established' rules of engagement..."
Now that this shoe is on their foot, I am anxuious to see what their rant is gonna be like.
Yes, why would I use a VPN or Tor to buy something from a website? I'm so silly. Why, that's just like wearing a stocking over your head when you go to the grocery store. Idiots.
At least to get my CC history they have to go through my CC company or bank.
One of the most telling omissions from the reasons GCHQ cite for keeping the surveillance a secret is the so called War on Terror. It's not mentioned at all.
Their biggest fear is / was the public finding out, and challenging their right to spy in the courts.
Something feels very wrong about that ;-)
Peace,
Andy.
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you! Who would have thought they would bend over backwards to help the spooks? /sarcasm>
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
China, Russia, Japan, Korea, Israel, Egypt, Syria, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Greece? These guys have been intercepting phone conversations, bugging people,following people, and spying / surveiling a very long time. At least some of them started out doing it to "criminals", alleged and otherwise, but you got to know the programs had spillage and collateral damage right from the start. And what gov operation didn't grow? What gov operation didn't stay clean? Most all of these guys are dirty, it is just a question of how dirty.
wake up and hold your nose
Lord Carlile Decrites The Guardian's Spying and Reporting on GCHQ's Spying and Reporting on Population
New Demands on Telcos to Grant Random Angry Moms Access to PM's E-Mails Uncalled-For Extended to Alll Members of Parlament
MILF Hunters Gain Access to "Angry" Moms Facebook Pages, Repost Nude Photos With Telcos Help
Telcos Reach Record Profits As Everyone Keeps Cramming Money in Their Hands For Information That Isn't Theirs
Both "admissible" and "admissable" are correct according to the OED.
Rick Falkvinge points out that "with 100% absolute certainty [we know] that the wiretapping industry – NSA, GCHQ, FRA, etc – has stopped a total of exactly zero terror plots". See http://feeds.falkvinge.net/~r/Falkvinge-on-Infopolicy/~3/0uW0HpNnG-k/
davecb@spamcop.net
We may know what happened last year https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/211553/31176_HC_547_ISC.PDF and may have some idea of what is happening of late http://isc.independent.gov.uk/ all of which might add some background to articles published by TheGuardian.
"Both "admissible" and "admissable" are correct according to the OED."
Really? Go back and check the OED - you'll find that the only spelling is "admissible".
Sorry, you're wrong. It is a bit more rare, and it is dropping off as people like you try to stamp out alternate spellings (invention of spell-check and all that -- the reason why I spell modeling with one 'l' now, instead of two like I used to, even though both are correct)... but there is a long precedent.
"I could care less, but only just barely."
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Don't they have a pill for anal retentive people yet?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
You sheeple just don't get it. No matter that you have a vague idea of how things went down in Soviet Russia, and Nazi Germany (and present day Russia and China), you fail to understand the exact same mechanisms can and do apply do so-called Western 'democracies'.
When Tony Blair rose to power, he was a monster unlike any ever seen in modern UK politics. His project was to place his loyalists in the command and control positions throughout the entire UK, and to use this power-base to influence and guide the rest of the world. Blair created 'Common Purpose' and Academy schools to recruit, train and place legions of Blairite psychopaths into positions of power and influence. Most of these people don't think or know they are loyal to Blair's ongoing agendas- like in the examples I mentioned at the top, these individuals think they are 'loyal' to the 'heart' of Britain.
Blair sought and achieved complete unification of every aspect of societal function in the UK. Politics, business, military, church, education, mainstream media, independent media- Blair took control of it all. And like his blood brother Putin (who Blair effectively placed in power by protecting Putin against any sanction by the EU or USA), Blair ensures his iron grip of the UK continues whether he has a formal title of leadership or not.
Of course every Telecom company is an extension of the total surveillance projects Tony Blair is forging in Britain. You would not doubt this about telecom companies in China or Russia, and Blair's grip in the UK is VASTLY greater than that of Putin or the communist party in China.
Tony Blair wants WW3, and is personally responsible for the horrors you have seen the West inflict in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. Blair created a fake 'inter-faith' religious organisation (the reason he 'converted' to Roman Catholicism) that he heads. He uses it to infiltrate into the societies of nations like Libya and Syria, so he can begin the process of recruiting traitors against their regimes, who will later form the leadership of so-called revolutionary forces.
War Wars require at least the passive support of the sheeple. Getting that 'support' requires absolute control of the mainstream and independent media (a given, obviously), control of the education programs most sheeple children receive in school (again another given) AND a completing of the feed-back loop by reading the minds of the sheeple in as close to real-time as possible. This is where intelligence agencies come in. The 'King' wants to know what the 'people' 'think'. Are they ready to back a war that will lead to the deaths of so many of them?
In the past, getting answers to these questions was a very imperfect process. Today, the NSA and GCHQ gather the thoughts of hundreds of millions of Humans daily. When Blair pukes his lies about the government of the Syrian people using chemical weapons, for instance, team Blair has real-time feedback about how these lies are playing with the sheeple. In this specific case, despite the best efforts of people like the owners of Slashdot, the people of the West said "F**k you Blair and Obama, we will NOT support another of your genocidal wars."
Doesn't matter though. Blair holds all the cards, and is having new ones printed daily to add to his hand. The sheeple will simply be attacked with new programs over and over until they are worn down and say "yes".
If somebody is committed to their particular spelling, then people really shouldn't complain, IMNSHO. Some of the world's greatest authors spent an inordinate amount of time tweaking spelling, grammar, and punctuation rules. No doubt many of the world's worst authors did the same thing, but stature shouldn't matter.
Whether a particular spelling is "correct" according to a dictionary is not definitive. It never can be, because language is an organic, living thing. If somebody is willing to stand their ground, good for them. That's far more interesting than somebody who reflexively changes their spelling the moment a person or machine tells them to.
A stupid spelling or a stupid rule of grammar can be challenged on its own merits.
Not really. The more likely chain is that the police would receive information about the plot and would fabricate the start of the evidence chain. The common hypothetical is that they'd pull someone over for a traffic violation and 'discover' something in their car that would then give probable cause for a search of other things.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Whether a particular spelling is "correct" according to a dictionary is not definitive. It never can be, because language is an organic, living thing. If somebody is willing to stand their ground, good for them. That's far more interesting than somebody who reflexively changes their spelling the moment a person or machine tells them to.
I never used to get 100% on the daily spelling tests in primary school either. And my teacher was a right-wing bigoted, joyless puritan. She was the only teacher in the school never to go on strike when Maggie Thatcher's thugs started the destruction of the modern, progressive state education system.
A stupid spelling or a stupid rule of grammar can be challenged on its own merits.
If only.
Stick Men
Don't they have a pill for anal retentive people yet?
There's a suppository for that. >:)
...but to co-operate because GCHQ probably has a compiled a blackmail dossier full of juicy shit on him.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
And this is why the Guardian's nickname is "The Grauniad"
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I was trying hard not to see that coming . . . .
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
- that's something the security services would wish to trumpet to the skies, especially now, and
Not if it would prevent prosecution.
- we can check and see if any accused terrorists were pulled over at a traffic stop (or something equally bland)
People have done already, and there are a lot of things that look like this is at least possible.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I have to agree to some extent, there have been a number of incidents in the news over the years that just seem all too convenient to be the result of mere chance.
The problem is that we can't even tell if "an anonymous tip off from a member of the public leading to his capture and conviction" isn't a security services agent just tipping off the police with knowledge gained from interception.
It's quite possible that the police wouldn't even know the security services had tipped them off.
A late comment: In Canada, they need not convict someone in court to hold them in custody, merely get a Ministerial order, so there is no risk in publicising putative terrorist plots detected by illegal wiretaps.
As with the EU, there have been none.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net