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.

Comments

Also ban cars

[korbulon]

Because of all the horrific deaths that have occurred just today.

Oh, and think of the children.

Re:Also ban cars

[Pablew Nopl]

Slippery slope is not automatically a fallacy. In fact, history is full of slippery slopes where the government wants the power to do something, and then abuses it for other purposes as well. People who point this out are typically shouted down for supposedly using a "slippery slope" argument by those who are ignorant of history. There is absolutely no question that the government will continue expanding its power and using it in ways no one could ever dream of if we don't put a stop to it.

In fact, the slippery slope is already happening. First it was "for the children," now it's "to stop the terrorists." You'd have to be completely blind not to see it.

Don't let them take away your rights. Freedom is more important than any safety they can offer you.

Re:Also ban cars

[drinkypoo]

Slippery slopesters you two.

Actually, it's the argument from exaggeration, I think there's a better name for it, but I haven't formally studied logical fallacies. I didn't formally study to learn to read, either. Instead, I read stuff. I can't diagram a sentence for you, because I don't care and because we spent maybe one day on that in my entire school career, IIRC, with no homework. I can tell you when a sentence is broken, and usually suggest multiple ways to fix it. And I can tell you when logic is broken, and suggest that someone fuck off :)

The point of making the extreme example (a form of hyperbole) is to illustrate a point — where do you stop sliding down the slippery slope? Because history tells us that mission scope tends to creep, and that like any organization law enforcement agencies tend to acquire power when possible and give it up only at gunpoint. Oh, sorry, that was more hyperbole. I imagine you're crying into your Kix now.

Re:Also ban cars

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Yes, the rhetoric for this week's episode of "Theresa May had an idea" has been particularly silly.

The statistics trotted out over the past week or so make for interesting, if depressing, reading.

For example, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, a very senior officer with counter-terrorism responsibilities, says they've been prevented on average one terrorist attack per year but so far this year it's been 4-5 already. (It's not clear whether this was in the specific context of "lone wolf" attacks, though.)

Just hours apart from that, we have Theresa May herself saying that almost 40 major terrorist attacks have been foiled since the 7/7 bombings, giving an average of about four per year. This means, she says, that the UK is facing the biggest terrorism threat in its history, which might be surprising to anyone who was around during the worst of the troubles with the IRA not so long ago. There are plenty of scary messages played over the PA system when you go through any major London railway station these days, but not frequent closures due to actual bomb threats and the like.

Also on Monday, there was a statement from Met Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley citing 271 arrests resulting from counter-terrorism investigations so far this year. Their Commissioner seemed to be implying in the above statement that all of these had led to charges, too. What they don't seem to have mentioned anywhere in this week's PR campaign is how many such arrests ultimately lead to convictions, nor how many of those convictions (or the arrests or charges themselves) are actually for terrorism offences.

The combined budget for our security services reportedly remains somewhere around the £2B mark, not counting additional funding for counter-terrorism units within other organisations such as the police.

In other news, in 2013 (the last full year for which stats are available) there were 1,713 people killed on our roads, and a further 21,657 seriously injured, not to mention damage to the economy estimated in the £15-30B range as a result of the disruption due to incidents on the road. Would anyone like to guess what's been happening to the annual road safety publicity budget in recent years?

Re:Also ban cars

[Qzukk]

learn how to argue valid points

Given that Cameron is arguing that we should take another step down the slope, your claim that their claim of a slippery slope is invalid is invalid.

Re:Also ban cars

[kheldan]

Don't forget to ban anything that could be used as a weapon. Since that pretty much covers everything in the world, including rocks lying around on the ground, people's limbs, their teeth, and even their own body mass (could drop yourself from a height intentionally onto someone and hurt them!), we'd better ban the entire human race, immediately. Line up for the disintegrator chambers, people, it's Closing Time..

David Cameron is an asshole. He'd completely ruin the internet for everyone, permanently, and it wouldn't do Jack Shit to solve the 'problem' he's so concerned about, the terrorists and criminals would just shift to different methods to communicate with each other.

Re:Also ban cars

[Applehu Akbar]

This begs the question, would any true Scotsman set foot on a slippery slope?

There. Three logical fallacies in one.

Re:Also ban cars

[mjwx]

learn how to argue valid points

Given that Cameron is arguing that we should take another step down the slope, your claim that their claim of a slippery slope is invalid is invalid.

Here's why it's a fallacy.

Cameron is just trying to detract from his growing unpopularity with statements like this. Tony Abbott in Australia did the same thing, a huge police operation across 3 cities arresting 17 people made big headlines on the same day he released very unpopular policies... Obvious the policies were buried under the HUGE ANTI-TERROR ARRESTS on the front page.

Of the 17 people arrested in these raids, 16 were released without charge, the remaining person had a fine for a weapons misdemeanour (unsecured ammunition).

So people thinking this is a huge slippery slope are reading too far into it, it's just a politician trying some hand waiving to distract from growing voter dissatisfaction.

Re:Also ban cars

[Pablew Nopl]

More importantly, don't let them take away your rights for safety they _can't_ offer you.

I'm not sure I'd say that's more important. People need to realize that, even if the safety they offer is real, fundamental liberties are more important.

Keys to the kingdom ...

[gstoddart]

no reason for such firms to be willing to cooperate with state agencies over child abuse but not over combatting terrorism

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.

Re:Keys to the kingdom ...

[drinkypoo]

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.

Sure they care. They care a lot. They just don't care in the way that you care. They care about whether their efforts to maintain the status quo succeed. That's it. But undermining the law is very much part and parcel of that maintenance. The people running our countries are career criminals and if the law were to catch up with them, they would be in trouble. They must continually erode the law, or they will be labeled as what they are. Thieves, crooks, con artists, frauds.

Re:Keys to the kingdom ...

[MozeeToby]

Today:
"There's no reason for such firms to be willing to cooperate with state agencies over child abuse but not over combating terrorism"

Tomorrow:
"There's no reason for such firms to be willing to cooperate with state agencies over terrorism but not over combating organized crime"

[etc]

Soon enough:
"There's no reason for such firms to be willing to cooperate with state agencies over petty theft but not over combating traffic violations"

Re:Keys to the kingdom ...

[gstoddart]

Eventually:

"There's no reason for such firms to be willing to cooperate with state agencies over traffic violations, but not over locating individuals who criticize the government".

The scope creep of these things is the biggest problem.

Many terrorism related provisions were implemented, and at the time we were told "oh, don't worry, we won't abuse this, this is purely for terrorism".

And now look at where we are. Parallel construction anybody? You know, where the police have a manual of perjury and how to violate your legal rights by pretending they found you through other means, and then actively conspire to conceal the truth from the legal system.

These things will always get abused over time. So the only real way to stop that is not allow them in the first place.

Joesph McCarthy would have loved all of this stuff.

Re:Keys to the kingdom ...

[Jahta]

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.

Sure they care. They care a lot. They just don't care in the way that you care. They care about whether their efforts to maintain the status quo succeed. That's it. But undermining the law is very much part and parcel of that maintenance. The people running our countries are career criminals and if the law were to catch up with them, they would be in trouble. They must continually erode the law, or they will be labeled as what they are. Thieves, crooks, con artists, frauds.

This article tells you all you need you know about the establishment's reaction. From TFA:

"The report also reveals that the two killers had been investigated seven times by different agencies and that MI5 cancelled surveillance of one of the murderers, Michael Adebolajo, just a month before the attack."

But the report then concludes that MI5 (and the other security services) are blameless and it's all the fault of some Internet company. Simultaneously whitewashing the security services failure and justifying (in their minds) further cranking up of mass surveillance.

Re:Keys to the kingdom ...

[king neckbeard]

A slippery slope argument is only a fallacy if it cannot be demonstrated that the slide down the slope isn't inevitable or at least highly likely. This progression of using terrorism and protecting children has been demonstrated to be true on numerous occasions, so it isn't a fallacy.

Re:Keys to the kingdom ...

[Jason Levine]

Sure they care. They care a lot. They just don't care in the way that you care. They care about whether their efforts to maintain the status quo succeed

Actually, I think politicians like this care about three things:

1) Getting Re-elected. Unfortunately, they have found that scaring people ("terrorists are hiding behind your chair RIGHT NOW!!!!") is a good way to shut down people's critical thinking skills (or what rudimentary ones some people have). When people are scared, they look for an immediate solution and the politician is right there with a proposal ("I'll ban chairs and then terrorists won't be able to hide behind them!"). It doesn't matter if the proposal is idiotic, the politician is good at making it sound reasonable enough if you are scared. Plus, if his proposal fails and something bad happens, they can blame the "bad event" on the fact that their proposal wasn't enacted (even if it wouldn't have prevented it). This can be used against any politician that tries using reason in the face of scare tactics. (There are a few of these, but they are a rare and endangered species.)

2) Obtaining Power: Being re-elected is good, but getting power is better. The more power you have, the less you have to rely on the whims of others and the more you can shape things to be how you want them to be. When you scare people, you can make them give up liberties in exchange for freedom. ("We need to put cameras in everyone's home to look out for terrorists hiding behind your chairs.") The more freedoms the populace gives up, the more power the politician has and the more he can misuse this power to crush his opponents. (That last part must never be spoken out loud to a crowd, though.)

3) Obtaining Money: Putting all these "security" systems in place requires a lot of equipment. Who's going to supply it? Obviously, the politician isn't going to be spending his time hand-crafting chair-terrorist cameras in his basement. No, he'll just contract it out to a big company. Which big company? Why the one who is willing to give him the biggest kick-back and/or perk, of course. This way, the company profits, the politician profits, and everyone is happy. Well, except those people with cameras in their homes, but they don't matter.

Re:Keys to the kingdom ...

[Forgefather]

We will never know because the second a Judge inquires about parallel construction the states claims the state secrets privilege to block any investigation. They've got all the angles covered which is why this is so frustrating.

And this is why...

[MikeRT]

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?

Re:And this is why...

[TheCastro1689]

I too should be able to pay a one days profit (yes that's what banks that helped terrorists and terrorist countries had to do) for crimes I commit. What's $30-$100 or so everytime I commit major fraud or help terrorists?

Total Packet Inspection

[Bob9113]

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.

Good work there, boys.

[Minwee]

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.

Its even worse than that

[Chrisq]

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.

Re:You can't make an argument by piling

[pixelpusher220]

Greetings! You must be new here :)

In other words ...

[CaptainDork]

... "our snooping methods suck."

Re: Yes!

[Pablew Nopl]

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.

David Cameron is a two fisted wanker

[jsepeta]

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.

On behalf of the UK...

[Archtech]

... 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.

Re:On behalf of the UK...

[MrL0G1C]

and cares absolutely nothing about human rights

I can assure you he does care and he has promised to remove them (I wish I was joking).

Conservatives promise to scrap Human Rights Act after next election

because they can

[markhahn]

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...

Political tactic these days?

[TangoMargarine]

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.

Like "Congress shall make no law ..."

[J'raxis]

[T]here was no reason for such firms to be willing to cooperate with state agencies over child abuse ...

That sentence ought to end right there.