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Cameron Accuses Internet Companies Of Giving Terrorists Safe Haven
An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from The Guardian: "Internet companies are allowing their networks to be used to plot "murder and mayhem", David Cameron has said in response to the official inquiry into the intelligence agencies' actions ahead of the killing of Lee Rigby. He demanded that internet companies live up to their social responsibilities to report potential terror threats and said there was no reason for such firms to be willing to cooperate with state agencies over child abuse but not over combatting terrorism. His comments to the House of Commons came after the parliamentary intelligence and security committee concluded that the brutal murder of Rigby could have been prevented if an internet company had passed on an online exchange in which one of the killers expressed "in the most graphic terms" his intention to carry out an Islamist jihadi attack.
Because of all the horrific deaths that have occurred just today.
Oh, and think of the children.
Here we go, those two plus fighting copyright infringement are the magic keys to the kingdom. The fascists and despots can use those pretty much anywhere to bypass all laws and protections.
If we don't stop the copyright-infringing terrorist pedophiles the world will end, so as a result, we can get access to everything just to be safe.
The scary thing is these guys either don't understand, or don't care, about how much they're undermining the rest of the law and society. Instead they figure the surveillance state is necessary to protect us from the bad guys.
Sorry, but the governments are becoming the bad guys and the threat to our freedoms. And they don't care.
Face it, the terrorists effectively won, and destroyed our freedoms, and now our own societies are pretty much turning on themselves.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
HSBC's leadership are doing life in prison without the possibility of parole for helping Iran evade sanctions when Iran is one of the top state sponsors, right?
What's his point? Are internet companies supposed to be monitoring everything? They are supposed to be responsive when the authorities request it with a suitably justified warrant. I can't see any reason to go beyond that. And if law enforcementcan't justify the invasion of privacy with a warrant then they shouldn't be given a blank cheque to monitor any and everything.
As helpful and entertaining as it would be to have them monitor legislators 24/7 for the mere possibility of criminal activity, I wouldn't support that either.
This is the most irresponsible and inconsiderate answer on this important topic.
Terrorists? Seriously? What about child molesters? What kind of monster would hide the safe havens for child molesters behind the cover of terrorism?
Cameron has revealed himself as either a pedo or incompetent to fight online child pornography.
Some have pointed out the explicit invocation of the slippery slope, but it is worse than that.
His comments to the House of Commons came after the parliamentary intelligence and security committee concluded that the brutal murder of Rigby could have been prevented if an internet company had passed on an online exchange in which one of the killers expressed "in the most graphic terms" his intention to carry out an Islamist jihadi attack.
This is not the same as blocking access to child porn sites. He is calling for the content of all packets to be inspected for unapproved speech.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
...Cameron can best be described as a right pratt...
His comments to the House of Commons came after the parliamentary intelligence and security committee concluded that the brutal murder of Rigby could have been prevented if an internet company had passed on an online exchange in which one of the killers expressed "in the most graphic terms" his intention to carry out an Islamist jihadi attack.
It's a good thing that there has never, ever in the history of communication been an incident where anyone expressed in graphic terms their intention to carry out something that they weren't actually going to do.
In the end, this is just trying to blame hindsight. "Now that [insert horric event] has occured, we've found evidence that [insert person doing horrific event] was doing things that now appear obvioius that he would do terrible things." However, just because people want to do horrible things, it doesn't make them a criminal. If we were punished for every malicious thought we had, then many people would never see the light of day again.
your terrorist is my freedom fighter
Not just internet companies but the postal service and telephone providers. Things get worse, plots have been discussed in renal houses, hotel rooms, and cafes. CAn you imagine all these people allowing a safe haven, not to mention the paper and pen manufacturers that allow themn to write messages, the food producers that nourish them and the highways agency allowing them to drive to destinations.
When I read Cameron's bluster? http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net...
The world is complex. All those anti-terror laws passed in the US? Mostly being used against non-terrorist criminals.
If they can use all powerful tools expressly against what the tools were approved for use against, then future wielders of said tools have carte blanche ability to decide that what you did yesterday is now a threat to the state.
The US *currently* has 30 states of emergency in effect linky. One still in effect from the 70s!
Freedom also means freedom from gov't intrusion, which is also important for that Safety/Security thing you're concerned about. In the name of Safety/Security the gov't is trying to get backdoors built into all encryption protocols. That decidedly makes you LESS safe and secure.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Where these terrorist not living in the UK at the time? If so, how come the UK government provided a safe haven for them to operate and discuss their plans?
Greetings! You must be new here :)
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
... "our snooping methods suck."
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Do you really think your voters are so stupid? Do you really think they still believe your bull about "protection from terrrrrists"? Or do you even drink your own cool aid?
Tell me, do you think we're stupid, or are you? And bluntly, it's not a false dichotomy. There are really only these two options.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
How come Cameron, being the PM and all, not be held fully responsible for his inability to prevent UK resident to perpetrate terrorist acts on the very sole he's in charge of? After all, he's the one with intelligence services and such, stampeding the privacy of the very people that elected him. Would all this just mean that he violated fundamental rights of the British people to no avail?
Safety and security ARE more important than "freedom".
Simply incorrect. If you believe that way, then move to North Korea.
I, however, want privacy, free speech, and other fundamental rights. I recognize that a life without these things is not a life worth living.
I prefer the "freedom" from poverty and the "freedom" not to be shot or blown up over the "freedom" to google for explosive recipes or extremist ideologies, thank you very much.
You seem to be completely and utterly ignorant of history. That is, ignorant of the millions of abuses of government power throughout history. The US's surveillance is already being used for parallel construction and spying on love interests. Police routinely abuse innocent people. But I'm sure that the government is full of perfect beings who can do no wrong and can make no mistakes. Not only that, but you can trust every future person in the government to be this way. The sheer amount of stupidity it takes to think this way is simply astounding, so I must congratulate you and your worthless ilk.
The governments in free countries are supposed to be on the side of the people. When your government abuses you, that is much worse than if some random criminal abuses you.
And I see that you want to enact censorship. How very principled of you. I'm sure you'll continue believing that right up until the moment the government thugs you think are so perfect censor speech that you like. When you're someone who mindlessly goes along with the status quo, you don't need to worry about anything. Freedom is speech is mainly to protect speech that people do not like, otherwise there would be no point.
And since the majority of sane people think likewise, you will have to learn seeing things our way. :)
Bandwagon fallacy.
I'll take my chances. I'd much rather live and take risks than live in a police state. North Korea already has what you want, so I suggest moving there.
you know who the real terrorists were? Bush & Cheney, Rumsfeld & Rice, and their manservant Tony Blair. Waging an illegal and immoral war against the sovereign nation of Iraq, they bombed innocent civilians and encouraged the spread of terrorism which did not exist under the iron fist of Saddam Hussein. by ignoring history and not understanding the dangers of a power vacuum, they fucked up the middle east and made all of us less safe.
so David Cameron, shut your pie hole.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
To trick people into thinking they don't already have access.
People behave differently when they know they are being watched.
He who lives by the lack of privacy, should have none.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I'm tired of politicians beating the {jihadi|pedo|copyright} drum. You can use a pipe wrench to provide clean water or you can beat someone to death withit, but that's no reason to outlaw pipe wrenches.
You can also use telephones to arrange contract killings. Let's ban them.
On second thought, maybe we could use our phones and internet servers to get rid of annoying politicians.
... please accept my apologies. We can't seem to get anyone elected to lead our nation who has any knowledge or experience of anything other than backstabbing, deceit, and bluster. I hope it goes without saying that we know this fool Cameron knows absolutely nothing about software, and cares absolutely nothing about human rights - no matter how much hot air he emits about them.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Imagine the amount of mayhem being tacitly supported by makers of paper and pens.
Politicians think they are right to demand control of behavior because it is, theoretically possible. They don't seem to appreciate that their model for the online world is flawed: it's not like physical space, compact and easily policed. The net is a communication medium, which can no more be policed than paper, phones or *air* can be cleaned of mayhem...
This is only the beginning
In other news, stores call the police when they see a patron beating her kid to a pulp but they do not call the police when someone buys a single pre-paid cell phone or gift-prepaid-debit-card when they know or should know that terrorists use burner cell phones and prepaid debit cards.
Governments pull people over if they see a kid tied to the roof of a car going down the highway but they don't pull over someone whose trunk lid is shut even though they know good and well that terrorists carry weapons in their car trunks.
To the few of you who think I seriously advocate a police state, yes, I'm being sarcastic.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Jesus fucking christ what a moron.
His intelligence services dropped the ball. End of story.
"...reading every comment ever made on all of the Internet fora and passing along potential terrierist threats to the government!"
Exactly how does the idjit Cameron think an ISP is supposed to do this? Doesn't your vaunted government capture of everything that transpires on the Internet work any more?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
It seems like a number of politicians these days have this strategy of boldly saying things that don't stand up to scrutiny, but as long as they say them confidently enough and call you a traitor for disagreeing, it mostly works.
He demanded that internet companies live up to their social responsibilities
I would argue that the "social responsibility" he proposes does not exist. Why do ISPs supposedly have to manage access to content hosted in other countries? Why can't they just be "pipes"? If people want to see offensive things, I say fucking let them. (And see also the multitudinous posts above about how anything can be used for evil.)
to report potential terror threats
Oh, so of course they need to be reading our communications all the time looking for sarcastic comments they can nail us to the wall over. Great.
and said there was no reason for such firms to be willing to cooperate with state agencies over child abuse but not over combatting terrorism.
Oh look, when we* fold for one thing we get called traitors for not supporting, they immediately snowball it into another thing and feed us the same line. I assume by "child abuse" he actually means "child porn," even the kind that is animated and in no way hurts any actual children. And that, y'know, are already covered under non-invasive laws anyway.
The greater threat to democracy these days is our own politicians, rather than anything the terrorists can do to us. Seems like half our own fucking representatives don't even believe in democracy as anything other than a vehicle to get themselves more power and money.
*Okay, yes, it's the U.K. but I'm sure the U.S. government would love to do the same thing.
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You may wonder why the president needs to declare a state of emergency to deal with what appears to be fairly routine instances of corruption in far-flung corners of the world. Korte notes that Congress provides little oversight on emergency declarations, even through it's mandated to do so by law. In an era when tussles over executive power are a near-daily occurrence, this is a strange incongruity.
"What the National Emergencies Act does is like a toggle switch, and when the president flips it, he gets new powers. It's like a magic wand. and there are very few constraints about how he turns it on," said Kim Lane Scheppele, a Princeton professor interviewed by Korte.
Oh, so it's like Chancellor Palpatine back in the Star Wars prequels. Only this is IRL. Nice.
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He's complaining that they won't censor anti-Semitic media and that makes him an anti-Semite?
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Anybody familiar with Cameron's abysmal record, especially when it comes to countering terrorism, knows that Cameron is desperately trying to shift the blame away from his own incompetence.
That sentence ought to end right there.
Liberty in your lifetime
If one man murders another in the street, is it terrorism? Presumably if Raoul Moat had been a Muslim, his killing spree would have been terrorism too.......
Safety and security ARE more important than "freedom".
Simply incorrect. If you believe that way, then move to North Korea.
Why do you think North Korea is the epitome of safety and security?
I dare say, you dont know what either of these terms mean if you think they apply to North Korea.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Who said that I do? That fool wants to give the government pretty much unlimited power, and you'll just end up with something like North Korea, or police state lite. Why not just skip the whole process and move to North Korea to see what his nonsense will get him? He seems to think that the people in the government are perfect angels, but history shows otherwise.
That was my point.
Try going without food for a couple of days and spending a couple of winter nights in a shop doorway. You won't be talking so tough then, kid.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
We don't need nazi ideology, holocaust deniers or other dangerous propaganda and we're all the better off for it.
We also don't *need* comments like yours. In fact, I think we'd be better off if you moved to North Korea.
We're way more free than stupid yankees because we don't have to worry about being fired from our jobs or being bankrupted by medical bills.
Freedom from government harassment is *not* the same as being free from random thugs (though the government can certainly act like thugs). The government is supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people, so when the government harasses you or infringes upon your basic liberties (in this case, *everyone's* liberties), that is far worse than if some random criminal were to harm you.
Keep your "freedom" to get shot and live under a bridge, redneck.
Keep ignoring all of the millions of government abuses of power throughout history and pretending that your government is full of perfect angels.
And considering the context, a lot of this is about freedom from mass surveillance. I suppose you also don't want that freedom.
Problems:
1) "If you were in a different situation than you are now, you would think differently!" does not debunk a single one of my statements; it's a non sequitur.
2) You can't possibly know what I would think in such a situation unless you claim to be psychic, but then I'm going to need to see some proof.
3) Lamenting the fact that you have no food to eat is not mutually exclusive with believing that freedom of speech, privacy, and other fundamental rights are monumentally important. You can, in fact, do both.
Learn some basic logic, "kid."
Ok, now what is an "internet company"? Sounds like a "business"... terms so vague as to give no clue as to what they do. Someone needs to give that politician a lesson in technical English as he obviously couldn't catch a clue with a clue bat.
What "internet company" is he talking about that provides terrorists a safe haven; Amazon?
And ISP (Internet Service Provider) gives a last mile connection to the internet. They usually provide some additional perks like an email server, NNTP server, personal web space, or free firewall and antivirus software; yet what you are paying for is primarily a pipe to the net. An ISP doesn't monitor what goes through the pipe but how much you push through your pipes. If they are monitoring; they are data mining and selling the information as Comcast is infamous for.
As to the "safe haven for terrorists"... Who hosts the server where the safe haven is located?
Lee Rigby seems to espouse a logic that would prosecute the cashier at the gas station because you filled your vehicle then got into an accident that killed people.
Minor rant over the clueless... Just like that VP that invented the internet since he voted funding for the original DARPA project.
NRRPT/RCT
You said a life without freedom is not worth living. I suggest that if you actually had to make that choice, you might not be as tough as you try to sound. On balance of probability it's likely, or there'd be a lot fewer oppressed people and a lot more dead ones.
Now go out and play on your bike, keyboard ninja.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You said a life without freedom is not worth living.
Correct. A life devoid of freedom simply isn't worth living; that would be a police state. Everyone has a responsibility to fight back against that.
I suggest that if you actually had to make that choice, you might not be as tough as you try to sound.
I refer you back to my reply, as it's still a silly response to what I said. It doesn't debunk anything, and you're not psychic.
On balance of probability it's likely, or there'd be a lot fewer oppressed people and a lot more dead ones.
You speak to an individual, not a collective.
Now go out and play on your bike, keyboard ninja.
Go argue with cold fjord instead of people who actually care about freedom, keyboard ninja.